Contingency Causatum
by xenascully
Summary: Sequel to Contingency. Tony acquires superhuman abilities, but at what cost? Will his ability to save himself mean living forever without the people he loves?
1. Chapter 1

Contingency 2: Gideon's Rising

Rated: T

A/N: Shameless plug: Please go check out my first published novella, Version 2.0 (under the pen name C.M. Adams) on Amazon. You can get it for kindle or get a paperback. It's the first in a series.

A/N2: I'll be a little slow on updates. My father passed this week, and things are chaotic in my brain, so slow thought process when it comes to writing. Bear with me.

*~.~*

The case had led them to a house that sat in the middle of two acres of empty land. Their suspect was presumed to be inside alone, and the team was approaching stealthily, weapons readied, so as to avoid his taking off. Gibbs turned to his team as they got closer.

"Ziva, McGee, cover the exits. DiNozzo, you're with me," he ordered, and they filed into position as Gibbs stepped up to the front door. He knocked twice. "Jon Griffon, this is NCIS. Open up," he called through the door. He gave a good ten seconds before nodding to Tony, who then kicked the door in. The two agents filed into the house, searching around every corner, in every room. No one seemed to be inside, but there was a lower level they still needed to check.

"Basement, Boss," Tony cocked his head toward the door that led down. Gibbs acknowledged him, and they headed down together, Gibbs following behind him...

..

Ziva had taken position at the back door, while McGee was in front. With no word on any activity, Ziva was growing impatient. She crept up onto the back porch and began peeking into the window. Something caught her eye, then. It was a red light, small and unnoticeable unless you'd have been looking for it. It was under the corner of the refrigerator in the kitchen, and it only took a moment for her to realize what it was.

Her eyes widened with panic as she fumbled for her phone and quickly hit the speed-dial for her boss. She heard the click that indicated he'd picked up, and didn't bother to wait for a greeting.

"Gibbs! You and Tony need to get out of there, now!" she shouted. "There is a-" her sentence was abruptly cut short when she was thrown from the porch in tandem with the sudden explosion. She hit the ground rolling, and coughed as she quickly pushed herself up and looked back to the house. Her knees nearly gave out as she saw the middle of the house had collapsed in on itself.

She found herself searching the earth in front of her for her misplaced phone. Ziva skidded to her knees to retrieve it from where it had dropped somewhere mid-flight. "Gibbs!" she yelled into it. "Gibbs, can you hear me?" she tried again. There was no answer, and neither agent could be seen in the structure. There was very little fire left behind from the explosion. It was almost as if someone had reached down from the sky and punched a giant hole into it. And as she made her way toward the remnants of the building, she realized she hadn't heard from Tim. Her path changed, and she was running around to the other side of the house. "McGee!" she screamed out.

A groan sounded from somewhere, and her eyes caught sight of the fallen agent as he began to push himself up off the ground. "Ziva?" he called and then coughed.

"McGee..." she reached his side in time to help him to stand. "Are you alright?"

"I think so," he rubbed the side of his head as he turned to face her. "What happened?"

"There was a bomb inside the house," she told him.

McGee spun to look at the structure, eyes widening in panic. "Where are Gibbs and Tony?" he asked, voice raised in fear.

"They were inside. I don't know, McGee... I did not see them."

"We've gotta look!" he shouted and started toward the house. "Call 911...get an ambulance and the fire department here!" McGee stepped onto what had been the porch, carefully approaching the ruins of the house, as Ziva put her phone to her ear. "Gibbs!" Tim called out. "Tony!" he listened for a response as he inched further in, trying to see through the rubble and smoke.

Once he reached the threshold, it was as if a gust of wind suddenly pushed away all the smoke filter that had been hindering his vision, and he could see everything. The debris had piled inward, and he could see now that everything was at an angle that shifted toward the middle of what was left of the structure. There was no sign of the rest of their team, and everything had caved in right to the basement.

McGee swallowed against the rapidly growing lump in his throat. "Oh god..."

Tbc...


	2. Chapter 2

**AN: Sorry for the wait, guys. Thanks for being patient. Wanted to make this longer, but I felt like I needed to get something up tonight, so it's going up! In a few days I'll have a little more time for steady writing. Then it should come a little more often.  
**

**If anyone had a chance to read Version 2.0, let me know what you thought :)**

***~.~***

**Then...**

"Basement, Boss," Tony gestured, and the two headed down to investigate. The lower level was dark, aside from the sunlight coming in through the tiny windows along its upper walls. The agents shone their flashlights around the cold cellar as they moved into it, cautious for the possible hiding suspect. "Damn," Tony shook his head as he looked at all the boxes of scrap. "It looks like Iron Man's spare parts storage room in here."

Gibbs raised a brow at him, but before he could respond, his cell rang in his pocket. He fished it out, barely glancing at the caller ID before answering.

"_Gibbs! You and Tony need to get out of there, now! There is a-"_

Anything else Ziva might've said, was violently interrupted by what sounded like a giant anvil dropping overhead, followed by what felt like an earthquake. Both agents looked up at the shaking ceiling over their heads.

Tony knew what was about to happen, and he jumped towards his Boss, knocking them both to the ground as he tried to cover his body with his own. But at the last moment, he turned onto his back beside Gibbs and held out his hands toward the collapsing ceiling, just barely more than arms-length before crushing the two of them.

Gibbs had covered his face on instinct, protectively, with his arms, awaiting the inevitable. But when the noise had stopped, and he found himself untouched, slowly he pulled his arms away. He sucked it a breath, surprised at the debris that was creaking above them, and he turned his head to see Tony's arms out over them. It only took a moment to realize that his senior field agent's power was the only thing delaying their demise. He turned his head all the way down to look at Tony's face. The agent seemed to be thrumming with the intense concentration on what he was doing. The lead agent opened his mouth to talk, but found his throat coated in what must've been some kind of dust covered debris, and needed to cough to clear it.

"Boss," Tony let out a breath he'd been holding in his struggle to maintain concentration. "You okay?"

"Was about to ask you that," he replied, looking back over at him.

"Think I'm okay," he said, taking a controlled, heavy breath. "Don't know how long I can do this for, though..."

**Now...**

McGee dropped to his knees and immediately began pulling large chunks of debris from the top of the pile closest to him. Tears threatened to come, stinging his eyes as he thought about what they might find when this was over. If they'd been in the basement, it was likely they'd both been crushed to death if the explosion itself hadn't killed them. Tony would come back... Tony would be okay, he knew that much. But would they be down there long enough for Tony to wake up and see Gibbs' lifeless body beside him? What would that do to Tony?

What would happen to the team? Oh god...if they lost Gibbs...

McGee fought harder to hold back the tears, now, speeding up his process of pulling away the debris. He had to push all of those thoughts out of his mind. He had to believe that they were both somehow okay.

"They are on their way," Ziva said, coming up behind him. "What are you doing?"

"I'm trying to get them out," he told her, concentrating on his task.

"What if it collapses even more, McGee?" she asked, crouching down beside him.

"Do you think that's even possible?" he glanced at her, seeing her worried eyes.

"We should wait until help arrives. They will have better equipment and can remove it faster."

"I'm not gonna sit here and do _nothing_, Ziva," he told her. "I...I can't."

After a moment she replied, "I understand." Then she began to help him. "Something we should take into consideration is that if they are... If they did not make it, once they are found, if they see Tony come back..."

Tim paused in his actions for a split moment, considering that statement. "Maybe we should call Ducky; tell him he needs to be here for this?" Ziva nodded in agreement.

*~.~*

Gibbs woke up to his name being called beside him, and realized he wasn't sure when he'd lost consciousness at all.

"Oh thank God," Tony breathed a sigh of relief. "You scared the crap outta me, Boss."

"How long was I out?"

"I dunno. Seemed like an hour, but I don't think it was nearly that long," his voice was strained still. "Think you've got a concussion."

"How're you holding up?" Gibbs asked, changing the subject.

"I'm fine," he grunted, letting out a breath.

Gibbs moved his head to get a closer look at him. The younger agent seemed to be a bit paler than last he'd looked at him. A thin layer of sweat coated his face.

"Think I've been hearing...a rescue crew up top," he told his boss. "They're trying to dig us out."

"Good," Gibbs tried to take a deep breath, "'cause I think the air's getting kinda thick."

"Been trying not to think about that," Tony let out a small, nervous laugh. "Except that I can't stop thinking about that," the smile fell from his face. "If we run outta air, I pass out. I pass out, I can't hold this stuff off anymore and it crushes us to death. We die, I wake up and you're gone, Gibbs. I don't think I can handle that..."

"Yes you can, DiNozzo," Gibbs turned to face him. "None of this is your fault. If I die, then it's my time. Don't you ever take responsibility for that fact."

"If you die today, it's because I wasn't strong enough."

"No one's strong enough to do what you're doing right now," Gibbs reminded him. "You're giving me more time. Time that in any other circumstance I wouldn't have. You're doing everything you can, Tony. And I know it's not easy. I can see it in your face. You're doing more than you should have to, just like always."

Tony laughed at that. "I dunno if 'always' is an accurate definition."

"Maybe not," Gibbs smirked. "But when it matters most, you never let us down." Tony's breath hitched and the muscles in his jaw contracted as he gritted his teeth. "And if we don't make it out of here, the both of us, that statement doesn't change." Tony swallowed, shaking his head almost imperceptibly. "You need to face facts here, Tony. I'm gonna die...long before you will. It's gonna happen. That's just how things are, now. If you make my death into something that starts turning you into Gideon, I will kick your ass from beyond the grave, and I can promise you that."

Tony seemed to be struggling harder, now. His pale face growing pink hot with strain, and he let out a breath before sucking one right back in. "I don't want this," he said, almost too quietly to be heard. "I don't want these abilities. I don't wanna be Gideon."

"You don't have to be."

"I don't wanna live forever. I don't wanna watch all of you die. What am I supposed to do, huh? What the hell am I supposed to do, then?"

"You keep going," he told him. "You just keep going, Tony. You save as many people as you can and you make the world a better place, just like you've been doing, even before the accident."

"I don't wanna do it without you," a traitorous tear escaped the corner of his eye and made it's way down Tony's temple, his struggled hold on the material above him becoming more difficult.

"Well that's too damn bad," Gibbs said, sternly. "We lose people. We keep going. That's life."

"I'm not you," Tony shook his head. "I'm not strong like you, Boss. I'm a damn coward. I'd have jumped off a bridge if it'd been me that lost my family like you did."

Gibbs narrowed his eyes. "You'd be surprised how strong you can be, when the time comes," he replied, softly. "If I'd jumped off a bridge, I wouldn't have met my _new_ family. If I hadn't found some strength somewhere where I didn't even know existed, I wouldn't have met you and McGee and Abby and Ziva and Duck... Tony, you've gotta find it. You've gotta figure it out, or you _will_ end up like him."

"But...I need you around. I need you here to help me find it. I...I can't..." he shook his head again, this time, a trickle of blood beginning to make its way from his nostril.

Gibbs wanted to tell him he was being an idiot; to wipe that notion right out of his head. But now he was worried. "I'm not giving up, Tony. I'm just trying to make sure that you're gonna be okay."

"Well I'm not!" he shouted. "Not if I can't do this!" The blood began to drip more quickly now, and Gibbs could only see Tony's profile, so he wasn't sure if there was more. Tony's body was shaking with the effort of holding the concentration of his powers, and likely his emotional struggle as well.

Gibbs' eye twitched in thought, calculating what he needed to say to the man. When he made up his mind, he drew in as deep a breath as possible. "Then you'd better do it," he told him in the form of an order. Something changed in Tony's demeanor, then. Something not many people would've noticed. But Gibbs' knew what it meant.

There was something about an order from Gibbs that gave Tony renewed strength where he thought he had none. There was a time when Tony was so close to dying, lying under blue lights and hooked up to machines and needles and fear, that he had been a thread away from just giving in to the inevitable. Had Gibbs not come in and ordered him not to die, he might not have made it.

As Tony lay there concentrating his powers, he wondered if maybe Gibbs actually had some of his own...

Tbc...


	3. Chapter 3

The sun was going down. Most of the rubble had been pulled out of the destroyed house. Neither agent had been found yet.

McGee had almost collapsed from pushing himself too hard, hands bleeding from the debris he'd pulled out for hours. He was now seated on the back bumper of an ambulance, watching the manned machines as they continued to work.

"Timothy," Ducky's voice sounded beside him, "Do try and drink some of this." McGee glanced down to Ducky's hand to see a bottle of water being offered to him. Shakily he reached over to take it. "Everything will be alright, my boy," the doctor told him, and Tim met his eyes.

"You don't know that," he replied, flatly.

"No, I don't. But I believe it," he told him. "And so must you. One mustn't force the heart to dwell in sorrows for things not yet known."

"I'm...I'm just..." Tim's eyes darted back and forth in the air between them.

"Afraid," he finished for him.

"Yeah," Tim let out a breath.

"As am I. But we must have hope, and we must be able to get through whatever might happen when this is all over. In the very worst outcome, Tony will need our help getting through this. We have to be available to him, don't you agree?"

"That's just what I'm afraid of, Ducky," he said in a low voice. "I mean, yeah I'm...I scared that Gibbs could be..." he couldn't even finish that sentence. "But what I'm really afraid of is that...what if I can't help Tony? What if...what if Gibbs is gone and Tony can't be helped? What if I can't..."

"We've got something!" they heard a man yell near the debris site. Both McGee and Ducky turned, Tim standing and making his way behind the doctor toward the man.

..

Once Tony could see light peeking through the debris, he started to let go, slowing allowing some of the remaining items to rest down upon them, inwardly glad they weren't heavy enough to crush them. "We're gonna make it, Boss," Tony turned his head for the first time since the explosion, looking over to find Gibbs. He'd been quiet for a while, and now Tony saw the man's eyes were closed. "Boss?" he called out. When he got no response, his insides felt like there were suddenly thousand of little hot needles pushing outward. He couldn't breathe. His mind went blank.

"We've found them!" a voice sounded somewhere in the recesses of his mind. The light was suddenly brighter. People were standing over them, but he couldn't take his eyes off of Gibbs.

..

McGee was standing over the site as they removed the last big piece of debris, revealing the two agents. Tony's face was covered in drying blood, some looking a bit more fresh, and he seemed panicked as he looked over at the still form of their boss. Tim's heart clenched in his chest at the sight.

"Let's get them out of there, now!" Ducky yelled from beside him, and he watched as the rescue workers scrambled to get to them.

As Tim watched, helplessly, Tony seemed unaware of anything aside from Gibbs. Until, of course, he was being hoisted out of the remains of the house. At that point, he began flailing and struggling against the workers. "You need to help him!" he shouted, voice rough and cracking from his ordeal. "Please!"

"Sir, he's being pulled out of there, now," one of the men told him.

"I need to know if he's okay," he replied, pleading clearly shown in his eyes. "Please...can you... Please just... Is he okay?"

"We'll find out for you, Agent DiNozzo," he replied.

"Tony," McGee approached quickly as soon as they were clear of the house, trying to get a chance to check on him as they secured him to a gurney.

Tony's hand shot out to grab his arm before he even had the chance to look up and see his face. "McGee," his voice cracked as he met his eyes. "Gibbs...Is he...?"

"I dunno," Tim's eyes welled. "They're pulling him out, now."

"I need to know if he's okay, Tim. Please. Please go..."

McGee nodded quickly and nervously, not even waiting to ask Tony if _he_ was okay. He knew it wouldn't do any good. He tore away from the senior field agent and ran toward the other team of people, including Ziva, as they cleared from the debris with Gibbs. "Is he okay?" he asked them.

"We've got a slow but steady pulse, Agent McGee," the worker told him. "Slowed breathing, but it's all expected. We're gonna get him on oxygen and straight over to Bethesda. I'm...honestly it's some kinda miracle they weren't crushed to death," the man shook his head. But Tim had stopped listening at that point. After sharing a glance with Ziva, he turned to head quickly back to Tony.

The EMTs were loading the gurney into the back of one of the ambulances as he approached. "He's alive, Tony!" he shouted. And he watched as Tony's head came up to look at him, as if to make sure the voice he'd heard was real. Tim nodded, and he watched the relief wash over Tony's face before his head fell back on the gurney once more...

TBC...


	4. Chapter 4

"Excuse me!" Ducky's voice sounded urgent as he approached from somewhere behind McGee. "Timothy, have you forgotten?" he said a little more hushed. "That agent is under Federal protection!" he shouted as he continued toward the ambulance.

"Oh hell," Tim smacked a hand to his forehead, suddenly remembering that they'd called Ducky there for a reason.

"Sir, this man needs medical attention," the EMT told him as he stood with his hand on the door.

"Obviously," Ducky replied, shortly. "And our staff is more than capable of giving it to him. But the possibility of his survival, should you take him to a hospital, could quite inevitably put his life at great risk."

"Under whose orders am I to release him to you?" he asked.

"The Director of NCIS," Vance's voice sounded beside them as he rounded into view from the side of the bus. The EMT looked sheepish before he nodded and turned to his partner to assist in getting Tony back out of the vehicle. Vance turned to his employees.

"Director," Vance greeted. "We weren't expecting you here. Though I must say, I'm glad you are."

"Glad it seems I got here in time to see they're alright," he replied.

"Are we clear to take Agent Gibbs to Bethesda?" the EMT asked as they unfastened the straps on the gurney.

"Yes, you are," Vance nodded, then turned back to Ducky. "One of you going with him?"

"I would like to," the doctor replied. "That is, as long as Agents McGee and David will escort Anthony back in the van," he looked to the agent beside him.

"Oh...uh...of course," McGee stumbled over his words.

"Though I think it'd be wise to let Ziva do the driving, just this once."

"I promise to take it easy," Ziva said as she quietly entered their circle.

"That's a relief," Tim sighed. "I don't think either of us could handle any more stress today." Both Ducky and Vance tried not to chuckle at the comment.

"I'll meet you at the hospital, Dr. Mallard," Vance nodded, then turned to his agents. "I expect a report in the morning, if the two of you are well enough for it."

"Of course," Ziva replied. "I will handle it."

"One for the record. And then I'd like you to tell me whatever can't go on it."

The two nodded in understanding before the man turned and headed back toward his SUV. Tim and Ziva shared a brief glance before heading to the M.E van to get the gurney.

..

"Ziva, a little help!" McGee called out as he tried to help Tony up from the gurney once they were parked in front of Gibbs' house. Tony was doubled over in gut-wrenching pain in his head. It had started around five minutes into the trip back, his nose gushing blood as Tim nervously attempted to find something to catch the flow, in the back of the van where he'd sat beside the gurney.

Tony whimpered with every movement, latching on to his head with both hands as if they were the only thing keeping it from flying apart completely. Tim wished he could do something to ease his pain, but medications didn't seem to ever have much of an effect on him now. He'd have to ride this out, and Tim hated that for him.

Ziva pulled the back doors open as quickly as she could get to them, and moving to assist Tim in getting their teammate out as smoothly as possible. They were as careful as they could be. Although Tony was able to self-heal, it didn't sway their feelings of anguish at his suffering from use of his power. And even though he hadn't said as much, yet, they knew he had done something to protect Gibbs in there.

As they got Tony out of the gurney and down off the back of the van, he suddenly pushed them away and leaned over toward the grass, abruptly vomiting stomach acid into it. His friends moved in to grab onto him as he listed dangerously, re-clinging his hands to his head from the efforts.

"Oh my, Tony!" an elderly neighbor made her way down from her porch and over toward them. "What's happened to you?"

"He has a horrible migraine, ma'am," McGee replied for him, quietly. "We're bringing him home to rest up."

"Poor dear," she said, shaking her head. "If you need anything, just come on next door. I have ice packs and heating pads and herbal teas, or I can make him something to eat once he's up to it."

"That's very kind of you," Ziva said as they started toward the house again. "We will let you know when he is feeling better."

The journey to the front door was slow and cautious. Tony's body seemed so weak, it was frightening. Or at least that's how McGee felt. He wasn't so sure about Ziva, but she did seem worried. They managed to maneuver him into his room on the ground floor, tucking him into bed without bothering to remove his bloody shirt. They'd deal with that later, when it wouldn't just be torture to spare the bedclothes. Tony immediately curled up on his side, wrapping his arms around his head and letting out a strangled whimper.

"Tony, please," Tim said almost in a whisper, "Tell us what we can do..."

There were a few heavy breaths before he replied, "J-just..." and he breathed again.

"Anything," Tim told him.

"Just...check on...Gibbs," he pleaded. "And...thirsty. Please...something to drink..."

Tim looked to Ziva, who nodded and made her way to the kitchen. "Do you think you can sit up to drink something?" Tim asked.

"Guh..." Tony let out a defeated, pained sigh, knowing he would have to do as his partner suggested.

"I'll help you," Tim offered.

"Stomach..."

"You feel sick again?" he asked as he helped him to sit back against the headboard.

"Ugh..." his eyes, as usual when this happened, were hemorrhaged; red taking up all that would be white.

"There's a trash can beside the bed," Tim swallowed against the lump in his throat that always formed when Tony was in this shape.

"Need something..."

"Ziva's looking."

"There is only some whole milk," Ziva said as she came back with a glass of it. "Unless you want tap water. However, perhaps this will help coat your stomach."

Tony reached for it. "Anything," he said as he took it. He started to drink, and once it began its course down his throat, it was as if he'd found life-blood in the contents of the glass, and he began chugging the rest of it down.

"Uh careful, Tony," Tim warned. "You'll ending up throwing it right back up, you drink it that fast."

But Tony didn't slow down. Not until the glass was empty, at which time he held the glass back out to Ziva, "More...please," he requested. Ziva shared a glance with Tim before fulfilling it. She came back with a full glass and the jug of milk, as McGee stood ready with the small trash can, eying it to try and calculate how much it could hold. By the time he glanced back up at him, Tony had not only finished the glass, but was now guzzling the jug itself.

"Uh...wow," Tim slowly stood from the bed, not really know why, but feeling like he should be prepared for something. Even if he wasn't sure what that something was. The jug was emptied within moments, and Tony was left catching his breath, head fallen back against the headboard with his eyes closed. Slowly, Ziva took the glass and jug from Tony's hands and slipped out of the room. McGee approached the bed again, cautiously. "Are you, um...okay?" he asked.

Tony blinked open his eyes, and to Tim's surprise, the red was gone. "Actually, I feel much better," Tony sighed after taking in a comfortable breath.

Tim sank down beside him on the bed, unable to look away. "You feel better? Something about the milk, maybe..."

"I dunno," Tony shook his head. "But we should stock up on that stuff, definitely. I thought I was gonna die. Which would've sucked because it hurts coming back to life."

McGee nervously laughed at the ridiculousness of the statement.

"Alright, well!" Tony pushed up and moved to get off of the bed. "Let's go check in on Gibbs."

"Whoa! Hang on!" McGee stood and stopped him.

"Tony?" Ziva walked back in, surprised to see him suddenly okay.

"I'm feeling better, Zee-vah. Let's go see the Boss-man."

"You're not going anywhere looking like that," Ziva chided him.

"She's right," Tim agreed. "You're covered in your own blood, and dirt and dust from the debris of the house. You show up at Bethesda looking like that, they'll know exactly who you are, and that you just bounced right back from being almost killed in that explosion."

"We shall clean you up, and then we will go. Wear a hat or something," Ziva suggested.

"You want me to go in disguise?" Tony raised a brow at the two of them.

"Not really...not a disguise. Just...nothing that'll draw attention to yourself," Tim told him. "So...step one would be a shower."

"Guys-" he was impatient to get going.

"We'll call and check in on Gibbs while you're in there," he promised. "It'll be okay."

Tony stood there stubbornly for a moment, then let out a resigned sigh. "Fine." Then he stomped off to the bathroom.

TBC...


	5. Chapter 5

AN: I took a break from writing in my second book in the Version 2.0 series, to get you this longer chapter up! Hope you enjoy it! And please do go check out my book on Amazon! Pen name C.M. Adams. I also have an author page up under that name (on facebook) :)

AN2: Author's Note Convention (Ancon) 2013 is coming up July 7th! Please check out the website, authorsnote dot org and click on the ancon2013 button to see our special guests and our flyer. You can also check out past ancon events on the site and see a little of what you'll have to look forward to if you should plan to attend this year! :)

On with the show!

*~.~*

The last thing Gibbs remembered was feeling too tired to keep his eyes open; Tony's bloodied face fading from his vision, and then nothing. Suddenly he could breath deeply and easily, and slowly he began to become aware of things. Things like there was something on his face. Something soft beneath his body. A smell that was familiar and frustrating and made something in the anxious part of his brain tingle uncomfortably.

He knew, before he opened his eyes, that he was in the hospital.

"Tony!" his eyes shot open and he grabbed from the oxygen mask that was on his face.

"Jethro!" Ducky was suddenly at his side, attempting to stop him from getting up out of the bed. "Jethro, calm down. Anthony is alright, I promise you. But you must stay in this bed and keep this oxygen on, or I'll be forced to have the nurse sedate you!" he said sternly. Gibbs stopped his struggle and met Ducky's eyes, slowly forcing himself to relax back onto the bed. "That's a good lad," the doctor told him. "You gave us all quite a scare, my friend. Do you remember what happened?"

Gibbs narrowed his eyes at him for a moment, wondering why he'd ask that question. "Yeah, Duck. 'Course I do. Explosion. Tony and I were trapped in the basement." His voice was hoarse, though the mask was humidified, and Ducky was already pouring him a cup of water from a plastic jug beside the bed.

"That's correct," Ducky replied. "I saw to it that Tony left the scene with Timothy and Ziva in the van. As far as rescue workers from the site are concerned, he was transported to a Federally protected medical facility for his own safety."

"Is he okay?" Gibbs asked. "Were there...side effects?"

"I spoke a little earlier with Ziva," he replied. "She said his symptoms were more intense than we'd ever seen, before. My guess," he glanced toward the door before continuing, and hushed his voice a bit more, "Is that the extended amount of time he needed to use..." he made a gesture with his head so that he didn't have to say the word aloud, "Likely caused the more extensive reaction. Interestingly enough, they seem to have made an odd, and quite frankly exciting discovery," he smiled. Gibbs looked impatiently at him. "In the midst of his adverse reaction, he had a sudden overwhelming sensation of thirst. Aside from tap water, all Ziva could find was milk, and since his stomach was also upset, she figured it might kill two birds. He ended up drinking the entire carton. And immediately after, his symptoms had vanished."

"Vanished?" Gibbs repeated skeptically, tilting his head to the side.

"Gone. No more pain or discomfort."

"I know what vanished means, Duck," he furrowed his brows. "How would milk make all that go away?"

"Of that, I cannot be certain, until I have the chance to run some tests. Should Anthony be willing, of course. In the mean time, I suggest you keep milk readily available in your refrigerator." Gibbs seemed to be thinking. "Last I heard, he was getting cleaned up and planned to head here to see you."

Gibbs' eyes shot to his, "That could be dangerous."

"I said as much. However, Ziva said that they had it under control." And just as he'd finished his sentence, there was a sound at the door, and three people were walking in through it.

"Boss," a smile came from behind a fake beard and mustache, but the voice gave Tony away, and Gibbs watched the agent round the bed to come stand beside it. "You're awake. You're okay... You're okay, right?" Gibbs glanced to Ducky.

"He has a mild concussion and has been receiving oxygen, as his levels were low when he arrived. But it seems that he is, in fact, okay, Anthony. Thanks to you," he smiled.

Tony let out a small, relieved laugh and shook his head. "Maybe." He looked back down to his boss, who seemed like he was trying to figure something out as he looked at Tony's face. "What is it, Boss?" Tony asked.

Gibbs' hand came up and pulled the oxygen mask away from his mouth. "You look like an idiot," he told him, and put the mask back on.

His first instinct was to reply with, 'It was Ziva's stupid idea!', but instead, he just smiled and said, "I'm glad you're okay, too, Boss."

..

"Oh my god oh my god oh my god! Why didn't anyone tell me?!" Abby Scuito paced anxiously in the lab after Ziva told her the news from the long day.

"We were a bit preoccupied, Abby," she replied. "I apologize. But everyone is alright. That is what matters, yes?"

"Someone should have called me!" she shouted, still pacing.

"Why? So you could do _this_ for several hours?" she gestured a hand in Abby's direction. "Freaking out, wondering if they were even still alive?"

"I have a right to freak out, Ziva!" she argued. "They're my friends, too!"

"I am not saying you do not have a right. Only that you must forgive us for not calling you to tell you before now. It has been...very difficult." Something in Ziva's voice made Abby stop pacing and turn to look at her. She seemed worn, worry still in her eyes as she remembered the events of the day. "To wonder whether or not Gibbs was okay," she closed her eyes for a moment, before opening them to look at her friend. "I could not handle losing another father... Not so soon after..."

Abby's features immediately changed; the frustration melting away into feeling like a fool now that she'd had that information, and she quickly closed the space between them and wrapped her arms around her friend. "Oh, Ziva... I understand. I do." She squeezed her tightly, resting her chin on the other woman's shoulder. "I don't know what I'd do if we...if we lost Gibbs. I don't know what I'd do. For real. I'd be...I don't even wanna think about what I'd be..."

"We would...not be the same," Ziva agreed, and her arms went around Abby's back to hug her in return. "But Gibbs is fine. He is relatively unharmed and will be going home in the morning."

"I'm so glad it was Tony in there with him," Abby said, gently pulling away. "If it hadn't been, we'd have lost two people today. That's not acceptable, Ziva," she shook her head, and Ziva realized that Abby was in a bit of emotional shock over all of this. "I can't even...let myself _think_ about what would happen if something ever happened to you guys...I would just...die!"

"Abby," Ziva grabbed hold of her arms, gently. "Everything is going to be alright. And if anything should ever happen to us, you would carry on, because you are strong and brave, and we would live on in you." Abby seemed conflicted about the statement. But Ziva continued. "You would _have _to, Abby. We have no one else to do so. None of us have children or spouses. Aside from McGee, none of us have siblings left. We have _this_ family. And if we are all gone, then there is nothing left behind of us. No one left to tell our stories. No one...except for you," she met her eyes. Abby's were welled. "So you must go on, Abby. For us. Alright?"

"No one is allowed to die," she blinked back the impending tears. "Understand me? You tell everyone that. Just go and tell everyone that, because if you guys leave me, I'm not just gonna tell everyone about the awesome things you all did. I'm gonna tell them every embarrassing thing I can conjure up. Every single thing!" she threw her hands up. "Tell them!" she turned away and walked back over to her computer screen. Ziva half-grinned and moved to leave the lab. "Oh! Hey, wait!" Abby said, and Ziva turned back to her. "Tell them I found something, too. From McGee's thingamajig that Tony got a scan of Gideon on."

..

Tony, Tim and Ziva had all come back to Abby's lab, even though it was really late, to hear what she'd found. The forensic scientist looked as exhausted as the rest of them, by this point. But she needed to share what she'd found. But not before giving Tony a bone-crushing hug, and punching McGee in the arm for not calling her. As both men stood there recovering from the assaults, she pulled up some images on the screen.

"I ran the image you scanned, through our database and every database I can access going as far back as possible. When the results started pouring in, I thought there was some kind of glitch in the system. But I've looked this over a hundred times, now, and it's the real deal. This Gideon dude is like...hundred of years old. Maybe older than that. This is just what the system was able to detect on the databases." She began clicking through photos, some color, black and white, some too grainy to be certain of where it'd been taken.

Tim and Ziva looked at the pictures in fascination, while Abby continued to talk. "The photo farthest back that I could find is this one," she pulled up the grainy black and white. "It was taken in 1858," she told them and turned to look at the agents beside her. "And I've been thinking about it," she looked back at the screen. "Gideon says he can't remember things from his past anymore, right? I read this article about how our brain is like a really good web browser. We can pull up parts of our history and weed through hundreds of thousands of moments to get to exactly what we want. But in the meantime, all the little less important moments are kinda shut down and dormant. They're there, but we access them so rarely, that they get really hard to find. It can even happen with big things, too. That's why going to like a hypnotist, can sometimes help retrieve these really old memories you thought were gone. I'm thinking that Gideon's got so much information in his brain, there's no accessing point for a ton of that stuff. It's been so long since he's used it, it might be shut down permanently. There's just no room anymore. He's like on permanent overload."

"This is...amazing," McGee said. Abby nodded, and noticed that Tony wasn't right with them, like he had been moments ago. She turned around to find him, and saw him standing back beside Major Mass Spec, looking worriedly at the screen from where he uncomfortably stood.

"Tony? You okay?" she asked, and his eyes met hers. The others turned around as well.

McGee noted the slight paleness of Tony's face. "Are you feeling sick again?" he asked.

"No," Tony quickly shook his head and straightened himself, throwing on his infamous DiNozzo smile. "I'm fine. Just uh," he stepped forward a little, pointing a hand toward the screen, "Just lookin' at the photos." He swallowed against a lump forming in his throat. "So uh, do we have any way to figure out where he is?"

"Possibly," Abby turned back to her computer. "I'm compiling all of the locations where these photos were taken, to try and find any kind of pattern of movement. It's possible that he's been sticking to the same general areas his entire life, without even realizing it. Since we know where he was last year, we have one more documented sighting that can be added to this list."

"Okay," Tony nodded. "Well...go home and get some sleep, Abs," he told her. "You've done enough for the day. We're all heading home to rest, and you should, too. I want you to let me know the moment you find anything, okay?"

"Sure thing, Tony," she smiled warmly at him. He kissed her cheek and turned to leave the lab. McGee shared a worried glance with Abby, before going after him. He caught up with him right before the elevator doors closed, and hopped in beside him.

"What's going on, Tony?" Tim asked, a bit concerned, as the elevator started moving.

"We're riding an elevator. That's what's going on, McQuestionairre," he replied, back to the wall and arms crossed over his chest.

"You know what I mean," Tim chided.

"On the contrary, I have no idea what you're talking about," he played.

"Damnit, Tony," Tim flipped the switch and stopped the elevator in its course, lights dimming inside of it. "Don't play stupid. I know what you're thinking."

"Do you?" Tony rolled his eyes and titled his head to the side a bit, frustratedly.

"You're afraid you're gonna turn out like Gideon," he stated. "You're scared that you'll be walking around one day and not know who you are anymore."

Tony took a long breath in through his nose. "You're not gonna leave me along, till I talk, are you?" Tony surmised.

McGee was slightly surprised. Tony was stubborn and usually pushed people away when it came to real feelings. He could've forced that switch back on and told Tim to go to hell. Maybe he was too tired, though.

Tony sighed and slid his back down the wall so that he could sit on the floor. So McGee did the same on the opposite wall, trying to show him that he was ready to listen. "When I was in that basement with Gibbs, holding that stuff from crushing us," he began, "I was terrified he was gonna die." His head rocked back and forth, rolling against the wall behind him. "I was afraid I wouldn't be strong enough to save him," his brows rose, "And that I'd have to live with that; live knowing that...not just for a lifetime. For an eternity. And it scared the hell out of me."

"But you did save him," Tim reminded.

"Maybe," he replied. "But there's gonna be a day when I can't. When whatever this...thing is that's part of me now, won't be able to save you guys," he looked at him, then. "Tim, I'm gonna be here. After all of you are gone, I'm still gonna be here. Everyone I care about will be dead, and I won't be able to die. And the worst part? Ya know what the worst part is, Timmy?" McGee could only shake his head. "The worst part of all of it, is that one day...I won't even remember any of you," he closed his mouth, pinching it as his jaw clenched in an effort to keep from letting his emotions get the best of him. Or in Tony's mind, to keep him from letting the tears even form.

Tim swallowed, suddenly unsure of what to say as he absorbed what Tony had just said. "Tony..."

"I knew this," he smiled against the pitiful feeling. "I knew all about this from Gideon. But it didn't seem like...ya know...real. Not until today. And I...I don't really know...what I'm supposed to do."

McGee wasn't sure how to reply to any of this. He sat there thinking for a few moments, before decidedly getting up and moving over to Tony's side of the elevator, and sitting down beside his friend. Tony looked over at him, then back down at his hands where they folded over the tops of his knees.

"I don't know what you're supposed to do, either," Tim told him. "But...I tell you one thing you're _not_ supposed to do." Tony raised a brow in question. "You don't stop living your life. You keep doing it; keep going and make as many memories about the stuff you wanna always remember. And maybe...maybe if you don't let yourself, you won't ever forget them. You have an advantage Gideon never did, and that's the knowledge that it could happen. He didn't know that. And he let other agendas occupy his mind for so long, without thinking of anything else, those other things just...drifted away. You're not like him. You'll never be like him, Tony."

Tony breathed a laugh from his nose. "How d'ya know that?"

"Because. I know you. Tony DiNozzo Jr never gives up. Not when it's important," he smirked.

Tony shook his head, but a smile was playing on his lips. "Too bad that tanker gunk didn't absorb into you a little more. I wouldn't mind having a friend along for this ride."

"I'm along," Tim retorted.

"I mean for the long haul."

"We would kill each other."

"Yeah, but we'd always come back," Tony's infamous smile was back. And suddenly they were laughing and everything was okay, even if just for that moment...

TBC...


	6. Chapter 6

AN: Guys, obviously I suck. Attention span is on low, as well as motivation. I think I have some twisted version of a cold where I'm just tired all the time or something. I've had headaches for weeks, going through excedrin like candy (which im also going thru a lot of). I set out to get a chapter out today, and this is all I could manage. It's not long, but it's some of Gideon's history. I'll try like mad to get more up soon...

*~.~*

1781

Gideon Marcus had finally finished his study. His serum was ready. All he needed to do now was to test it. Yet no one seemed to be willing. He'd have to do it himself.

He'd been driven to attempt to create an advantage over the massive amount of British armies as they stomped over the Americans like children on an ant hill. He needed to give them all a boost, somehow.

His interest in the matters of science had begun in his school days, as a young man. He'd been venturing out with friends and they'd discovered a sink hole. Or that's what they'd thought it was, anyway. None of the others had been brave or stupid enough to go in. But Gideon held no such fears. He jumped into the crevice in the earth while his friends stayed behind, some of them even running off home so as to not get into trouble if anyone should be caught.

"_David, toss down the torch, would you?" Gideon called up to his friend. Within a few seconds, the lit bit of wood landed at his feet and he shouted a thank you before picking it up and waving it into the darkness. But as he made his way into the cave, the need for the firelight became unnecessary. There was a bluish glow coming from somewhere ahead. Gideon pressed the stick of wood into the dirt wall beside him, letting it continue to burn as he approached the glow._

_There was a spherical rock lodged at the point furthest in that ended the cave. It was spotted with whatever was causing the glow. As Gideon reached out his hands to it, he was hypnotized by its beauty. He'd never seen anything like it before. _

_Part of him expected it to be hot. The only thing he'd ever seen this close that caused light like this was fire, after all. So when his hands touched the surface of it, he was in awe of the fact that it was cold. _

"_Gideon, come on!" David shouted from outside. _

_It startled him, and he scrambled for his burlap bag and stuffed the rock inside of it. "Coming!" he called, then grabbed the torch as he headed back to the hole's entrance..._

Gideon thought back about how he'd accidentally broken the rock one day, after it had fallen off of his bed and cracked on the floor. The blue substance was suddenly spilling out of it in a pool beside his bed, and he scrambled for his empty flash to try and salvage it. But suddenly it was a fight between him and the scraggly black stray cat that had hopped in through the window to his room. The scrawny little thing began lapping it up as if it were warm milk.

Gideon had been certain the stupid thing would end up dying, though it'd only gotten a few licks in. But it survived. It didn't even seem phased, really. Not at first. But as years went by, Gideon noticed that the cat never changed. Never seemed scathed by any fight it had picked with other strays.

When Gideon went out into life on his own as a scientist, he took the cat with him to his new home. And on his 40th birthday, he realized that it was quite impossible that this feline was still alive. It had to have been the serum. It'd somehow made the cat stronger. That's what gave him the idea to use it to assist that soldiers in the war in the first place. But he'd have to prove it on himself.

So he did.

The small vial of serum tasted metallic as he drank it down. That's when things got a bit out of control. A young man from town walked in on him in the middle of the experiment, saw the glowing liquid and immediately assumed Gideon was doing witchcraft. The yelling boy alerted soldiers. And no amount of attempting to explain could save Gideon.

Before he knew what was happening, his lab was burning to the ground, and he was strung up from a tree, a noose around his neck. The horse kicked out from under him, he felt his own neck as it snapped. And then nothing...

Not for a while, at least.

He awoke on a pyre, being prepared for burning. The women who were preparing the woodpile beneath his body shrieked when he opened his eyes, screaming at the fact that he'd just risen from the dead. And in his fear, he fled as fast as he could, never to return to the city. He could never return. He could never tell anyone what he'd done...

tbc...


	7. Chapter 7

AN: So I decided to make up for the short chapter...SURPRISE SUDDEN CAMEO BY CRIMINAL MINDS! lol

*~.~*

"Thought I told your teammates I wanted the unofficial report by now," Vance told Tony as the door was shut to his office. "But I'm sure they were just waiting until you'd be comfortable enough to tell me yourself."

"That's a possibility," Tony replied as he approached the desk with a small smile on his face.

"Take a seat, Tony," he gestured with his hand, the use of his first name telling him that this was, in fact, off the record. When he sat, Vance looked him in the eye. "Are you?" he asked. "Comfortable enough to tell me, I mean," he elaborated. "Or should I ask if you trust me enough?" Tony seemed to study his face for a moment. "I will say, you don't have to tell me anything. I _am_ curious. I do want to know. But you don't have to tell me. I wanna make that clear."

Tony let out a small laugh, his eyes falling somewhere beside the director. "Ya know, there was a time that I wouldn't trust you with my _dry cleaning_, let alone something like this." He met his eyes again. "But Gibbs trusts you. And I guess because of that, I've opened my eyes without that mask of 'evil-man-who-sent-me-away' filtering everything first." Leon looked as though he were about to say something, but Tony held up a hand, "I know you were just doing you job, and I get it now. I do," he told him. "But at the time...hell, Leon...uh...Vance, Sir..." he stumbled. "At the time, I was already swimming in the guilt of Jen- of Director Shepard's death, and that...sending me away seemed like a punishment. Like something my father had always done; sent me away."

"That's not what it was about," Leon assured.

"I know that now. But like I said, at the time, I was angry because I'm pretty damn good at punishing myself. I didn't need anyone's help. Especially not some punk ass that strolled in here like he owned the place and started dishing out everyone's grounding terms. No offense..." he ended with a small laugh.

"I'll let that slide," Vance gritted his teeth. But he understood.

"But like I was saying, that was before I got it. Before I knew I could trust you. At least with this," he told him.

Vance picked his head up, taking a breath in through his nose, grateful that Tony felt that way. He leaned forward and typed something into his computer. Within a few moments, the familiar sound of the security system locking into place in the room could be heard. "This room is now secure," Vance told him. "Anything you say is between you and me."

Tony nodded in acknowledgment. "What do you wanna know?" he asked.

"I'd like to start with how you survived the explosion," Vance replied. "I can understand how _you_ might've walked outta there. But how did you save Gibbs?"

Tony cleared his throat, nervously shifting in his seat. "I didn't exactly...tell you everything when we had that meeting at Gibbs' place," he began. "There's something else I can do. It's best if I just show you." Tony looked over to the shelf along the far wall, then back to Leon. "Got anything you can throw at me?"

Vance raised his brows. "That an offer?"

Tony smiled and let out a laugh. "Sure. Anything you got. I'll go stand over there," he stood and walked toward the big screen up on the wall. "Throw the stapler, if you want," he suggested.

One of Vance's eyes squinted. "You just want me to...throw it at you?" he asked.

"Yeah. Just...pretend you're finally getting in a free shot," he grinned.

"Feels like I am," Vance replied, standing as he picked up his stapler from the desk. "Um... As much as this might seem like a fun idea, part of me doesn't wanna throw this at you. It's pretty heavy. Could break a rib or somethin'. Or more importantly the screen behind you."

"Ha... Trust me," Tony replied, slipping the serious face back on. "Throw it right at me."

"You're sure about this?"

"Wasting time, Leon," he baited.

Vance picked up his head, then lifted the stapler like he was getting ready to pitch it in a game of baseball. His face twitched for a moment, instincts causing him to hesitate, but then he threw it, grimacing for the split second leading up to it's journey toward the agent. But then his face went slack; eyes shifting from Tony to the stapler that now floated in mid-air in front of Tony's out-stretched hand. He said nothing. He watched and said nothing, and sank slowly back down into his chair.

Tony reached out and grabbed the stapler, then headed back to the desk before setting it gently down in front of him.

"You held the debris up from crushing you both," Vance surmised aloud, then met Tony's eyes again. "The explosion didn't touch you because you were on the ground floor. But you saved him by using that...that ability." Tony nodded. "But you couldn't move it off of you? Get yourself outta there?" he questioned.

"I'd never really tried to move anything that heavy before," Tony told him. "It's always been little things, and usually by accident. But I'd practiced enough to control when I use the ability."

"Have you considered trying something heavy like that again?"

"To be honest, Sir, using the abilities has a...side effect."

Vance squinted his eyes. "Side effect?"

"Migraines, usually," he told him. "Horrible pain, bleeding...It's no picnic. I try not to use my abilities if I don't need to. But it was necessary in there. And honestly, I'm not sure how much longer I would've been able to hold it. And if they hadn't gotten us out when they did, we would've run out of air. I would've lost consciousness and we would've been crushed to death."

Vance sat there for a moment, absorbing what he'd been told. "Guess it's a good thing they got you both outta there when they did," he said. "So the migraines. How long does it normally take to recover?"

"Depends how hard I used the ability; how intense it is. Usually they don't last very long."

"If you need time for this, specifically, you'll tell me?"

"I don't think it'll be necessary, but I will," Tony told him.

"Good," Vance nodded. Then he typed something into his computer, causing the security system to disarm. "Back to work, Agent DiNozzo." Tony stood, nodding to the director before he headed toward the door. "Oh, and Tony?" The agent turned back to look at Leon. "Thank you for trusting me," he told him.

For a moment, Tony merely met his eyes. Then he gave him a small nod before heading out of the office.

*~.~*

"Gear up!" Gibbs told his team after he hung up the phone at his desk.

"Boss?" McGee inquired with a furrowed brow.

"That was Fornell," Gibbs replied as he pulled on his jacket. "He's spotted him."

Tim looked over at Tony right as the agent entered the bullpen and overheard. Their eyes met for a moment. They'd brought Fornell into the case last year, knowing he'd be able to keep an eye open for Gideon without revealing anything vital about his or Tony's abilities.

All three agents quickly grabbed their gear and headed after Gibbs toward the elevator...

*~.~*

"How'd you manage a private jet, Tobias?" Gibbs asked as he glanced out the window at the clouds beneath them.

"Belongs to the BAU," he replied. "The team is already in Manhattan. It's how we spotted Gideon. In fact, they're trying to track him down as we speak. But all they know is that he's been killing."

"Killing in Manhattan?" Tony asked.

"That's just where he is, now," Fornell replied. "They've been tracking the murders up the east coast. All the same MO, just crazy enough to only be the same killer. I'll let them fill you in on that. But you're gonna have to debrief them on this, Gibbs. They're gonna have to know exactly what they're dealing with."

Gibbs looked to Tony. Tony looked to Tobias. "You sure they're gonna believe us?"

"They won't have a choice," he replied. "They could end up dead, trying to go apprehend him."

"You may have to prove it to them," Gibbs told Tony.

"That could be bad," Tony said. "That...vision," he looked away, "It's still there, in the back of my mind, Gibbs. It could still happen."

Gibbs knew what he was talking about. The vision of the doctors running cruel tests on him, tearing him apart. He still had nightmares that Gibbs would end up having to tear across the house and wake him up from.

"This team is trustworthy," Fornell assured him. "They wouldn't expose you unless you posed a serious threat to causing harm."

"But I kinda do," Tony replied with a nervous smile. "Just as much as Gideon does."

"Everyone has the ability to kill, DiNozzo. They only hunt the ones that do."

"I hope you're right," Gibbs told his friend.

Ziva and McGee listened to the conversation from where they sat at the other table, feeling nervous for Tony. Their fears unspoken yet understood as their eyes met, they silently vowed to do everything in their power to protect him...

*~.~*

Agent Aaron Hotchner picked up the team from the airport, in a black SUV. The police station wasn't far from there, and they didn't discuss much of anything besides introductions. Once inside the station, Hotchner led them to the conference room where the rest of the BAU team awaited.

"We have a couple of agents still back in D.C," Hotchner explained, "For the sake of research. But this Agents Morgan and Rossi, and Dr. Reid," he introduced his team. "Guys, these are the agents from NCIS. Agent Gibbs, DiNozzo, McGee and David. As you know, the unsub has been on their watch list for a year now. But from what I understand, very vaguely, he's been on Agent McGee's radar for quite a bit longer."

Tim sat as did the rest of them, all seated around the large table. He hadn't exactly been prepared to discuss the topic, but he felt as though he could talk to them about it. "He calls himself Gideon," McGee explained. "I was attacked when I was younger. I'd been trying to track this guy as best I could, but I wasn't an agent at the time. I could only rely on technology. We didn't meet again face to face until a year ago."

"You've seen him in person?" Reid asked.

"He took one of our agents hostage," Gibbs told him.

"That doesn't seem like part of his MO," Rossi interjected. "We've only ever tracked the killings as random abductions in part of some kind of twisted psychological game of torture. Was it his intention to do that?"

"It's what we thought might happen at first," Tony chimed in. "But he was using her for bait."

"Bait for what?" Hotchner asked.

"For me," Tony told him. "He wanted to get to me. And he knew we'd come for her."

"He specifically targeted you?" Hotchner inquired.

"It's kind of a long story..."

"That's interesting," Reid interjected. "His usual MO, as far as we're aware, is that he chooses victims by means of opportunity. There's no preference as to age, race or gender. He simply finds and abducts them, keeps them for a matter of days and disposes of the body, discarding it almost like you would a candy wrapper when you're through with it. How is it that you weren't captured? Or for that matter that you didn't capture the unsub?"

"We thought he was dead," Gibbs replied for him. "He was shot. He was down, without a pulse."

"And then he wasn't," McGee supplied.

Agent Morgan shook his head, "I'm confused."

"That's because you don't have all the information," Tony supplied. "Gideon isn't your average bad guy. And it's not exactly clear as to his motivation to kill. But we do know one thing; he wants to die. He's trying to find a way to achieve that goal."

Rossi furrowed his brows, as did the rest of the team. "He could start by doing to himself what he's been doing to his victims."

"I'm sure he has," Tony told him. "Problem is, Gideon...can't die. At least, he can't stay dead."

"You're a little early for April Fools," Morgan raised his brows and then glanced over to Spencer Reid, whose brows were furrowed and his expression told Morgan that he was deep in thought.

"It's no joke," Fornell chimed in. "You're gonna have to hear them out and keep an open mind on this one. Is this room secure?" he asked as he stood and began pulled the shades in the windows closed.

"No cameras or audio devices," Hotchner replied with a questioning look on his face. "What is this about?"

"What you're about to hear stays in this room," Fornell told him. "It's a matter of safety of life for one of these agents. Are we agreed?"

"Of course," Rossi replied for the team. "This has to do with you, Agent DiNozzo," he looked to the agent. "Am I right?" Tony nodded, nervously. "We've traced the murders back for at least five years," Rossi told them. "If you've always been his target-"

"Not always," Tony interjected. "And maybe not even now. But it still involves me."

"Please explain," Rossi gave him the floor.

"I should start by telling you that you haven't dug far back enough," Tony told the team. "Gideon's been killing for a lot longer than you even started to think about going into law enforcement."

"He can't be more than forty, maybe fifty years old," Hotchner said, glancing at the picture in the file in front of him on the table.

"He looks it. But he's a lot older than that."

"Our forensic expert traced his image through every database we have access to," Gibbs told them. "It goes back...unbelievably far."

Reid seemed to wake out of his thoughts, then. "This makes me recall a story I read when I was younger," he told them. "It was just a fable, really, written in the late eighteenth century about a man who was a witch. They hung him, went to burn his body, but he woke up and ran away, never to be heard from again. Interestingly enough, it was written right here in Manhattan."

"Do you know the author?" McGee asked, curious.

"The author is unknown," he replied. "It was discovered in a home that had been ransacked by British soldiers, after the end of the Revolutionary War."

"You read that as a kid and remember all that about it?" Tony asked.

"I have an eidetic memory," Reid told them, a small smile making a brief appearance.

"Really... Do you know anything about the brain's memory storage capacity?" Tony asked. "Say, if you were to absorb all possible information over a lifetime, would things start getting erased because you run out of room?"

"The human brain is capable of storing massive amounts of information," Reid told him. "I literally have thousands of books committed to memory, and that includes manuals and college course material. And that's in addition to my studies and personal life experience. I haven't experienced memory loss. Though...I suppose if I had, I wouldn't know."

"I mean life...if you were alive for hundreds of years," Tony elaborated.

"What does this have to do with the case?" Hotchner interjected.

"Actually it has everything to do with it," Tony replied. "The man in the story Reid read could be Gideon."

"That's not possible," Aaron smiled and shook his head.

"Open mind, Hotch," Fornell told him.

"The reason I asked about the memory," Tony continued, "Is because Gideon claims to not remember his past any more. He doesn't remember why he can't stay dead, or why he can do the things he does. He doesn't remember anything beyond being what he is now."

"He told you this?" Hotchner asked.

"Yeah," Tony replied. "Unfortunately, yes."

"Why would he confide in you and not then try to kill you?"

"Oh he tried," Tony smiled. "Shot me three times in the torso."

"He nearly bled out," Gibbs told them. "One of the bullets went through his spine. He was paralyzed."

"How is it that you seem perfectly fine now?" Morgan asked, wide-eyed.

"Because this thing..." Tony started, "What Gideon is..."

"You hear about the tanker accident in DC last year?" Fornell spoke up.

"Where the Federal Agent saved the kid and ended up badly burned by the tipped tanker?" Rossi asked.

"That's the one," Fornell replied. "Tony was that agent."

They all looked to him. "What're you some kinda super hero, man?" Morgan asked.

"I wasn't..." he replied with a laugh. "There was something in that tanker," he told them. "Something Gideon had been working on and thought he'd failed. But he hadn't. And after the acid nearly killed me, something else happened...and it changed me."

"Changed you how?" Reid asked. "I saw that video clip. You were burned by sulfuric acid. You were beyond recognition. Looking at you right now, I'd never have guessed you were that agent..."

"It gave me the same abilities that Gideon has," Tony told him. "It started with the healing. It's a painful process, but it basically expels the injury; reverses it maybe. And sometimes I get these...visions. If something is gonna happen to someone I'm close to, I...see it. I get these headaches and I see things happen. It doesn't happen very often. And to be honest, I don't know if that's something Gideon can do. But it happens to me."

"Man, how do we know this isn't some kinda joke?" Morgan asked, skeptically. "You can't honestly expect us to just accept everything you're telling us..."

Tony let out a long breath. "We figured as much," he replied. He reached to his belt buckle and took out his knife. The BAU agents glanced worriedly to each other. "Don't worry, guys. This is for me, not you." He took another breath and sighed. "You owe me beer and pizza for this, Fornell," he said as he rolled up his shirt sleeve. Tony laid his arm out over the table and slid the blade across his skin, making a fairly deep gash about three inches in length.

"What are you doing!" Morgan yelled.

"Just calm down," Gibbs told him. "Watch what he's trying to show you."

"What are supposed to watch, exactly?" Rossi asked.

"His wound," Ziva told them.

The agents looked where she had told them to. After a few moments, Tony grunted in pain and dropped the knife he'd still been holding, sending it clicking onto the table-top as his other fist clenched. His entire body tensed up and he squeezed his eyes closed as the pain seared through him. He felt Gibbs' hand take hold of his.

Reid watched in utter fascination as the gash began to close up. It seemed that everyone in the room had stopped breathing, just for those few moments as they witnessed the miraculous event unfolding before their eyes. And once Tony's skin was left unscathed, he released a breath as the pain ceased. He opened his eyes to the agents who were now looking at him in complete awe.

"Believe me now?" he asked.

TBC...


	8. Chapter 8

One of the victims' bodies had been sent to D.C for Ducky to do his own examination, as the teams had begun to track down Gideon's whereabouts in the city. They knew he was still there. Another missing person report lead them to believe that he had struck again. Same area, similar circumstances of disappearance.

The BAU team had remained in the conference room as the MCRT offered to grab lunch. Really they wanted to get some milk into Tony. But it was an appropriate hour for a meal, and they weren't sure that revealing all information about the agent was necessary at this point.

"This is so...difficult to believe," Morgan broke the silence in the room, finally. "It could mean there's a lot out there that we don't know about."

"Just because there's such a thing as these...super powers," Hotch replied, "Doesn't mean everything is fair game for being real."

"If the story I read is true," Reid chimed in, "That'd imply that this is witchcraft. Witchcraft has existed since the beginning of time, and the belief in it has existed as long in pretty much every region of the world."

"Yeah, but it's not real," Morgan tilted his head.

"It's not exactly disproved, though before today, I'd probably have steered more toward the notion of you being right in the matter," Reid replied. "While most of it may be false or imagined, the possibility exists that there could be some sort of power that was tapped into. Even if it was done so through a means of chemical science, which I suspect to be true since Agent DiNozzo was infected from contents in a tanker truck."

"Perhaps some form of necromancy," Hotch added. "Since he's unable to die."

"And it's a possibility that he's forgotten that, himself, and is now stuck without the 'cure' to end the very life he decided to immortalize," Reid said.

"This is crazy," Morgan laughed, shaking his head. "I can't believe we're discussing this like it's reality. It's gotta be some kinda trick."

"Trust me," Fornell scooted off of the table he'd perched on. "If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I'd feel the same way. But these people aren't feeding you bullshit. They don't know any more than you do about this guy, now. But we all want to bring him in, regardless."

They were interrupted when the NCIS team reentered the room, Gibbs leading them, phone to his ear before he pulled it away and set it on the table, face up, waiting for the door to be closed behind them. Then he said, "You're on speaker, Duck."

"_I've finished my examination of the poor Mr. Gary Rawls. I'm afraid that my initial suspicion was correct."_

"And what was that, Doctor?" Hotch asked.

"_I found the mutilations of the body to be pointless butchery. There seemed to be no motive to why. It's sloppy and uncoordinated, yet filled with purpose. Gideon was trying to disguise the real reason for his death. My assistant and I scrupulously searched every centimeter of Mr. Rawls body for one specific indication. An injection site."_

"And you found one," Gibbs surmised.

"_That we did. Abigail has run the toxicology report which came back with several substances, all terribly lethal to the human body. Which led me back to the thought of why there was a tanker filled with substances to be disposed of. I believe Gideon is trying to replicate the substance that changed him, and has been trying repeatedly to do so, and is now testing it on human subjects."_

"Why would he do that?" Morgan asked.

"Same reason he wanted me to go with him," Tony replied. "He wants to find a way to kill himself permanently by finding a way to kill someone like him."

"Why doesn't he just test out how on himself?" Morgan shook his head.

"Maybe it's the temporary deaths that cause his memory loss," Reid suggested. "Maybe he's figured out that much, and that by trying it out on himself, he could actually be forgetting the things he's already tried, and pushing the purpose in an endless circle."

"_And it's also likely that he's done this in the past. We know from Agent McGee's research that Gideon had been testing on animals before the tanker accident. But that doesn't mean he hadn't been testing on human subjects some time before that."_

"Morgan," Hotch looked to his agent, "Call Garcia. Have her look into this." He looked to Gibbs, "Can we get your forensic specialist to contact her so they can combine research?"

Gibbs nodded. "McGee, you and Abby work with their people. I want a narrowed down search perimeter."

"On it, Boss," Tim told him, pulling out his phone and stepping off to the side.

Gibbs looked back to Hotch, "We can't all stay in this room and get anything done."

"Agreed. We're setting up three surveillance vans within several blocks of each other near the latest victim disappearance point. We can split up into teams..."

..

Tony sat and tried to concentrate on the screen in front of him and the sound of McGee talking with Abby on the phone on the other end of the van. He tried to ignore the fact that Reid was looking at him from the next chair over. But he could feel his eyes on him like the sun heating skin on the beach.

"You can't actually _see_ anything, you know," Tony finally said, trying to keep the aggravation out of his voice. "I don't glow or sparkle or anything."

"I- I'm sorry," Reid shook his head as if to clear it. "I didn't realize I was..."

"It's fine. Just...if you wanna ask something, just ask. Unless," Tony turned to him with a smirk, "You have the ability to read minds if you stare long enough."

Reid's lips pressed into an awkward yet amused grin. "Not read minds," he replied. "But I can usually read people's expressions and body language pretty well. It's a part of my job, after all."

"Oh yeah? And what exactly do you read on me?" Tony challenged, raising a brow.

"Taking into the consideration what you told us about Gideon and yourself, and also the question you asked about the capacity of the human brain's ability to retain information, coupled with your consistent stature and fluctuating facial expressions since we've met, I'd conclude that you're worried."

"That I'm...worried," Tony nearly laughed, raising his brow higher.

"You're worried you're going to turn into Gideon," he elaborated. "That you'll start losing the memories of your past, forget your friends and family. You're worried that you'll be alone and that you'll be unable to die, just like Gideon. Which is actually interesting given the human nature to fear the end of life. The intrigue people take from vampire lore and fantasy is the eternal youth and immortality, never mind the fact they'd have to make the sacrifice of become basically cannibalistic in the process by drinking human blood in order to maintain that immortality. I suppose that-"

"Hey, I get it," Tony interrupted the endless babble. "It's like talking to Abby."

Reid's eyes shifted for a moment. "Am I wrong?" he asked.

"Not...completely," he replied, then looked back to the screen.

"Getting a call in from Abby and Garcia," McGee said. "Putting it on screen in all three locations."

*~.~*

Gibbs and Hotch looked up at the third screen in their van as a split screen with Abby and Garcia popped up.

"_Is everyone on?" _Abby asked.

"_That's everyone, Abs,"_ McGee's voice sounded.

"_Okay. Penelope, you start."_

"_Thanks, honey-muffin," _Garcia replied. _"Alright, so I checked into that book Reid talked about, and tracked its origin via theories of who might have written it. There was a study done at NYU several years ago on witchcraft in the eighteenth century, and this story was part of it. Anyway so I found out that all these people lived in or around Fort Washington, which is pretty much right in the middle of where you're all stationed right now. Abby..."_

"_McGee and I were trying to track down street cam footage during the times of each abduction," _Abby took over.

"Cameras didn't catch anything," Hotch said.

_"They didn't catch anything because they weren't functioning,"_ Abby corrected. _"We checked the footage at the estimated time Rawls was abducted and noticed there was a blip. Cameras stopped recording for approximately three and a half minutes."_

"_But not just for one camera," _McGee chimed in. _"Every camera in a one mile radius. Only one thing we could think of that could do that. An EMP."_

"_And we traced it to the center. We have an address..."_

TBC...


	9. Chapter 9

"Remember," Tony instructed the teams as a whole over the comm as they surrounded the building, "He can't stay dead, but you can kill him if you can hit him. He's fast as Hell, but if I can take him by surprise-"

"What do you mean, _you_," Morgan interjected.

"You've gotta let me go in alone," Tony replied. "I'm not gonna risk any of you getting killed when I can just as easily try and take care of this. If he kills me and tries to escape, he might not be expecting you when he runs out. You can catch him then."

"I don't like this," Hotch said to Gibbs and Morgan, though not over the comm.

"Neither do I," Gibbs agreed, "But he's right. This isn't an ordinary suspect. DiNozzo's got the best chances at getting a shot off at this guy and actually hitting."

"Boss, am I clear?" Tony asked over the comm.

Gibbs looked directly at Hotch for a moment. "We got the cage ready, McGee?" Gibbs asked.

"Yeah, Boss. It's right around the corner on standby," the agent replied. The cage was simply a make-shift cell in the back of a transport van that could be taken out of the van and into a facility without ever having to open it. This way, if Tony was successful and temporarily killed Gideon, he'd wake up in the call and be unable to even have the chance for escape.

"Go ahead, Tony," Gibbs told him. "And...be careful."

"Always careful, Boss," Tony replied. And though he couldn't see them, Tim and Ziva shared a knowing glance.

And then Tony was heading inside, gun drawn out in front of him as he stealthily entered the dark first level. He realized, after a few moments, that his heart was racing and his breathing was a little out of control. He needed to calm himself. So he stopped and closed his eyes for a moment, trying to bring it all under control.

He just needed to figure out where to head; where Gideon was in this building. And then it dawned on him.

Tony opened his eyes, concentrating on what he was looking for, and started to look around the darkened room. Then, as expected, it clicked into play; his ability to see past the solid objects and walls turned on as if he'd simply slipped on some magic goggles, and he was seeing all the way through to the other rooms in the building.

He searched them all, simply turning slowly in a circle. But no one was there. And then he stepped on something, probably just a pebble, but he looked down anyway without thinking much about it, and found himself looking straight down into a lower level they didn't know existed. And there he was. Gideon. Standing over the latest abduction victim, and Tony couldn't tell if he was dead or alive.

"I found him," Tony whispered over the comm. "There's a lower level. I don't know how to get down there."

"McGee," Gibbs called quietly over the comm.

"On it, Boss," Tim replied, as he began quickly working on his phone. After a few minutes, he came back, "There's nothing in the blueprints about a lower level."

"Tony," Ziva's voice sounded over the comm, "In the carport beside the building. This van could be Gideon's vehicle." Tony turned his head toward where he'd seen the van previously, and saw Ziva right outside of the room. "It could be that there is an entrance to the lower level from here."

"Best way to hide the fact that you're carrying a body," Tony confirmed.

"Gibbs, allow me to confirm," she requested.

"Do it fast," he replied, knowing she would be stealthy without needing to ask as much.

Barely a minute went by before she'd found it. "Hatch beside the van," she said as she made her way back outside. "There is am entrance to the carport from the building, Tony."

"Got it," he replied, making his way toward it.

Ziva was right. The hatch led to the lower level. And as Tony made his way into it, he shared a brief glance with her and nodded. He could see the apprehension on her face before he was no longer in sight of her. And then his mission was back to location Gideon. He looked again, using his ability. Gideon wasn't where he'd been before. Not exactly, anyway. There was a small room off of that room, and Tony could see that it was some kind of office. Gideon was sitting at a desk writing in a book of some kind. Tony took the opportunity to let himself into the room where the victim lay.

When he got to the man, he noticed the bright red tinge to his skin, and the sheen layer of sweat all over his body. When he reached out to check for a pulse, he realized how hot he was to the touch. He was unconscious. Tony wouldn't be able to lead him out before taking care of Gideon. He used his sight again, seeing that Gideon had someone not noticed he was there at all, still seated at the desk intently working on his writing.

He made his way to the room, gun aimed at the man's head. He was ready to pull the trigger.

"Anthony," Gideon's voice was calm and he didn't look away from his work. "I was so glad when I felt that you were here." Tony's eye twitched as well as his finger on the trigger. "Something happened after my last healing; after you shot me," he told him. "I remembered something. Something important."

"What was that?" Tony asked. "Human test subjects were much more fun?"

"No," he replied. "I remembered where I'd hidden the source of my...of our powers," he told him.

"What are you doing?"

"Making notes," he told him. "All of these subjects have been...incompatible with the serum," he said. "Something isn't right. There's something I'm forgetting about making it stable for human consumption. I can't find what it was. But nothing seems to be making it activate."

"Maybe it doesn't work anymore," Tony suggested. "Maybe the stuff died without a host."

Gideon's hand stopped mid-writing, his gaze fixing ahead of him at nothing in particular. "I...hadn't considered..." he seemed disturbed, suddenly. "But I cannot believe that to be true. It is our only hope, Anthony. The only way we can find a cure."

Tony swallowed. "This isn't the way," he told him. "You can't keep sacrificing people in order to -"

"I'm trying to save people," he countered. "I'm trying to save them, Tony."

"You can't do it like this, Gideon. You've gotta stop this."

"This...was my final attempt," he replied. "I knew you were coming. I knew I'd be able to hand it over to you. Maybe you can find someone to figure it out; someone who has...all of their mind." Tony's brows furrowed. "I'm turning myself over to you," he continued, "With the hopes that you and your people will continue my work. Take my research and the source and do...whatever it is that you can." He set his pen down and slowly turned to face Tony. "You have to do whatever you can...to save them. Find a way to end me. Find a way to end you before you become me," he told him.

Tony's heart actually clenched at Gideon's words. There was nothing he feared more than becoming Gideon. No one believed that he would, but Tony could see it. He could see becoming a pitiful man at the end of his rope after having lost all of his friends and family to time. It wasn't so crazy to believe.

"You come with me, peacefully," Tony told him, "And you answer any questions we have, and tell us how to save this man," he gestured toward the table the lay in the other room, "And I'll make sure that it gets done." Tony watched as the first sign of relief he'd ever seen on the man's face showed. "But you realize you'll be imprisoned," Tony told him. "You've murdered countless innocent people. You can't go free, and you can't try to escape."

"If you have a place that can hold me, I go willingly. I cannot promise to always remember my deal with you, Tony," he shook his head. "But I can tell you that I am much better off locked away. It's...as close to death as I can imagine getting. It's best...for everyone."

Tony blinked a few times, processing all of this. "Stand up," he told him. "And turn around. I need to cuff you and lead you out."

Gideon nodded and did as he was told. Tony hesitated for just a moment before holstering his weapon and pulling out his cuffs. Gideon didn't put up a fight. He went willingly along with whatever Tony wished.

..

Gibbs stood ready, anxious for what events might unfold in the building. They all stood ready outside the carport, growing more impatient by the moment. And then Tony's voice sounded over the comm.

"Guys, we need the prisoner transport," he told them. "Gideon's giving himself up and promises to cooperate." The team shared confused glances. "We'll also need an ambulance. The victim is still alive. Gideon will tell us how to save him, if it's possible."

The team looked to Gibbs, and after a moment he nodded to McGee to bring the transport around, as the rest of the team waited with their weapons still drawn. It wasn't long before Tony and Gideon exited the hatch in the carport floor. Gibbs noticed the slight sadness in Tony's eyes as he led the man to the transport that pulled up just outside. And once Gideon was inside and secured, they all holstered their weapons and marginally relaxed.

Gibbs placed a hand on Tony's shoulder as he stood beside him. "You alright?"

"Yeah," Tony replied. "He uh...he wants us to take his research and continue it...in a legal way, of course," he told him. "He came back here because after being shot by me, he remembered where the source of the powers was, whatever that means. Everything is downstairs. I think we should keep it...I mean I don't think we should hand it over to anyone outside of our team," he looked to his boss. "We should let Abby and McGee look at it; see if they can make anything of the stuff. Maybe we can get some blood samples from Gideon, and even me."

"We'll take care of it," Gibbs assured him. "I'll let Fornell and Hotchner know what's up. I'm sure they'll get it."

"Where do we take him, Boss?" Tony looked at him, then. "He's not just some guy. There's gotta be a place somewhere that can hold him if he forgets he agreed to cooperate."

"Ducky's been doing some research of his own," Gibbs told him. "There's a facility not far from D.C. A mental institution. Ducky can register him in as his patient; go in and check on him, order his medications, that kinda thing. He's pretty sure they can keep him sedated enough to suppress his abilities. He'd still be able to talk to us, but he wouldn't be able to try and escape, even if he forgets he's not supposed to..." his sentence tapered off when Tony's hand went to his head. His eyes were pinching closed as well. "Headache?" he asked.

Tony nodded. "Had to use my sight," he told him. "'s not that bad, Boss," he insisted.

"Let's get outta here," Gibbs led him to the SUV as it pulled up. And suddenly McGee was beside them, handing Tony a small bottle of whole milk. Gibbs looked at the younger agent.

"I uh..." McGee stuttered as Tony took the bottle with a thank you. "I brought a small cooler of them," he explained. "I figured he might need them. Better to have them on hand, than to need to find a mini-mart in the middle of the night."

Gibbs narrowed his eyes for a moment, then replied, "That's good thinkin', McGee."

"Thanks, Boss," he smiled for a moment. "We uh...we heading back home?"

"Gotta get Gideon to D.C," Gibbs told him. "We're gonna have to drive back."

"Security escorts. Got it, Boss," he replied. "Too bad we can put the cell on the jet," he smirked.

"Wouldn't risk Gideon changing his mind," Gibbs raised a brow. "I'd rather take my chances on land, then have him rage out in the air."

"Very true," Tony chimed in, looking much better now. "Thanks for having my back, Tim," he told the younger agent as he handed back the empty bottle.

"Always, Tony," Tim replied, and Tony watched him walk away toward the other SUV, and he felt something in his heart ache. Then he felt a sudden smack to the back of his head.

"Stop that," Gibbs told him.

"Right, Boss," he replied, knowing that Gibbs had somehow known what he was thinking.

TBC...


	10. Chapter 10

AN: Sorry for the delay. I lost my groove for a while...like seriously with EVERYTHING. But I think I'm getting it back. This is my first attempt back into writing anything in over a week. Let's see where it goes...

*~.~*

The team of SUVs and prisoner transport vehicle were about an hour into their trip back to DC. Gibbs was driving directly behind the transport, Tony sitting in the passenger seat beside him. In front of the transport Tim and Ziva lead the way. Hotchner had volunteered himself and his team to man the transport. They would meet back at NCIS and debrief as a group, bringing in Ducky, Abby and Penelope as well, since they had taken part in the investigation.

The trip would take a total of four hours if they were lucky enough not to hit traffic. Gibbs could've made it back faster, but the group had to maintain a safe speed for the entire journey. They were just grateful that the road so far seemed fairly vacant.

Tony had been quiet for the entire trip so far. It had begun to worry Gibbs. His SFA was usually an endless chatter-box. The only time he wasn't was when he was worried or asleep. And he was definitely far from sleeping right now. But whatever he might be thinking about, Gibbs couldn't stop him. He might be able to make him shut up, but one thing he had very little control over was the man's thoughts. The only thing he could attempt was to divert them. So he considered the topic of the effect of milk.

"Not sure, Boss," Tony broke the silence. "Whatever it is, it works. And I'm pretty well okay with that." Gibbs glanced to him for a moment before looking back to the road. He hadn't even asked the question yet, and Tony was answering it. "I think I'm gonna have Abby look into it. Maybe give her a sample of my blood and let her test it with the ingredients in milk to see if it's one this in partic-"

"Tony," he interrupted. "What are you talkin' about?"

Tony looked over at him, eyes narrowed for a moment. "The milk, Boss," he replied. "You wanted to know why it helps me."

Gibbs looked at him again. "I never said anything," he looked back at the road.

"You were... You..." Tony shook his head as if confused.

"I was thinking about asking. But I never asked."

Tony's face broke into a smile, "Well that'd mean I read your..." the smile faded from his face, and it blanched white. His eyes flickered back and forth at nothing, and he turned his head back to face forward, looking out the windshield as the look remained. His breathing audibly sped up, and he seemed to be in a slight state of panic.

"Hey," Gibbs tried to calm him. "Not a big deal, DiNozzo. Never happened before, right? Could just be a fluke thing." But Tony wasn't responding. Gibbs had assumed that he'd been having a freak-out about what had just happened, but when he saw the agent's hands clenched, his left on the seat beside him and his right to the grip on the door, he examined his face again. Something was happening. Tony was hearing something else, right now, and it was terrifying him...

"_Tony...let me go. I've changed my mind. I don't want to be imprisoned. An eternity of imprisonment, Tony. I couldn't take it. I couldn't... You have to let me go. You don't need me locked away. You can do the research with me out of here, still."_

"No..." Tony said.

"Tony, what's happening?" Gibbs asked, starting to worry a bit more. But it seemed Tony couldn't hear him.

"_Let me go, Anthony! Let me go or you'll be sorry!"_

"I won't!"

"Hey!" Gibbs shouted, hoping to pull him out of whatever what going on in his head. "Talk to me, DiNozzo!"

"I...I c-can't!" he said. Gibbs wasn't sure if he was even speaking to him.

"_If you don't get me out of here, I'll destroy everything you love. I will end what time you have left with your friends. Do you want that? Do you want to be without them, already?"_

"You can't do that. You can't do that!" Tony shouted.

Gibbs seemed to get what was going on, and he lifted his foot off of the accelerator a bit, pulling out his cell and dialing. "McGee, we need to pull off," he shouted into the phone. "I think Gideon is going something to Tony. Call Hotch. Tell him what's going on. See if we can sedate that bastard!"

"_It's up to you to take that risk, Tony. It's on your hands if they die before their time. Are you willing to take that risk?"_

"I won't let you!" Tony yelled out with a strength he didn't know he had, and something shattered in him; in his head something something closed down and stopped the voice from reaching him, and the force of it slammed into him like a brick wall, pushing all of the breath out of him at once.

"Tony!" Gibbs yelled, jerking the car off the road onto the thankfully wide shoulder that led into grass. Somewhere in the corner of his mind he was aware that the other vehicles had pulled over as well, as his protective mode kicked into overdrive at he sight of his agent's distress. Tony had himself pressed back into the seat, the once pale skin of his face now flushed red as he struggled for breath. "Hey! Tony, breathe!" he gripped the man's shoulder, shaking him as if to pull him back to reality. But Tony still struggled, and Gibbs could only think to get out of the car and rush around to open Tony's. And by the time he'd managed to do that, the younger man had already begun to claw his way out of it himself.

Gibbs caught him in time to stop his inevitable tumble to the ground, and Tony tried to push him away as he madly tried to take in a breath. But then he was suddenly clinging to Gibbs, fear evident in his eyes before they rolled back into his head. His body began violently quaking in Gibbs' arms, forcing them both to the ground.

Even with the knowledge that Tony couldn't die, the seizures scared Gibbs more than any of the other stuff. Though the Contingency compound gave Tony the ability of miraculous self-healing, factoring in that Gideon's mind was ever-degrading over the course of time, seemed to indicate that its application for healing the human brain was flawed. Gibbs worried that injury to it could mean that something horrific would happen to his agent. And that thought scared him beyond comprehension.

As he held Tony's body on its side, waiting for it to stop its fit, he forced himself to look away, and realized that Tim, Ziva and Aaron were running toward them. Hotch having been closest reached him first. "What's going on, Agent Gibbs?" he asked, eyes wide. "I couldn't get my cell to make a call out. I'd been trying to reach you. Gideon was acting strange, and now..." he glanced back at the transport where Morgan and Reid stood with guns pointed at the man in the cell, then and back to Gibbs.

"How?" Gibbs asked. "What do you mean strange?"

"He started breathing oddly, talking to himself, but nothing we could make out. And then right before you pulled over, he collapsed and started screaming. He's still screaming." And it hadn't been necessary to tell him that, because he could hear it from where he was.

He looked back down at Tony, still quaking as strongly in his arms. Then he made the only obvious decision. "Shut him up," he said.

"What?" Hotch asked.

"Shoot him." There was a moment of no response, and he decided to repeat himself louder, "Shoot him!" he looked back up at the man. "He won't stay dead! Just shut him the hell up!"

Hotchner shook his head, hesitantly, but McGee had already turned and started a fast walk back to the transport, drew his weapon, aimed and fired at Gideon's head, effectively ending the bloodied screams. Morgan and Reid stood stunned, watching as Tim made his way back to the rest of the group, and then they holstered their weapons and closed the doors to the transport.

Upon the shot, Tony's seizure stopped, and Gibbs turned him onto his back where he lay in his lap. Whether it was coincidence or not, Gibbs didn't know. For a moment, he feared it'd killed him. Tony wasn't breathing. Gibbs' heart jumped to his throat. And then suddenly Tony's eyes shot open, bloodshot and hemorrhaged, and he was gasping for air, arms flailing and grabbing at Gibbs' shirt as if to keep from falling to his death.

"Tony, I've got you," Gibbs said loud enough for him to hear over his struggled breathing as he grabbed hold of the side of Tony's head. "You're okay. Ya hear me?"

Tony's eyes made their way to meet Gibbs', with some effort, and the older man's heart clenched in his chest as a tear fell from the corner of the younger's eye, trailing to his ear unseen by the others. He made a sound like a whimper; a plea as he gripped tighter on the front of Gibbs' shirt.

"Pain?" Gibbs confirmed, and Tony's eyes squeezed shut. The lead agent looked up to Ziva. "Cooler in the back of our SUV," he commanded. "Milk."

She nodded, understanding immediately, and quickly fetched it for him. "Milk?" Morgan inquired as he and Reid joined them, crouching down as the rest of them were.

"Helps him when it gets like this," Tim explained, knowing that Gibbs didn't have the patience to care about anything but his agent right then and there.

"What exactly _is_ this?" Morgan asked. "What's happening to him?"

"This happens when his...abilities are used in excess to what he is used to," Ziva explained. "Though I have not seen a seizure happen..."

"In the hospital, when it first began," Gibbs told her. "Here, Tony. I'm gonna sit you up so you can drink this, alright?" he slowly moved him a bit upright so that he wouldn't choke. Hotcher instinctively moved in to help, getting behind Tony and offering his arms to support his back. Tony couldn't let go of his grip on Gibbs' shirt, even when the lead agent expected him to take the quart of milk from him. Instead, Gibbs held the bottle to Tony's lips and tipped it, allowing Tony to drink.

After a few swallows, Tony's hand released Gibbs' shirt and took hold of the container, drinking it a bit faster. They started helping him to sit up a bit more as he chugged the milk down. After a moment, he finished and Gibbs took the empty container from him. Tony seemed to want to get up, though he said nothing.

As Gibbs and Hotch helped him up, Gibbs nodded to his agents to head back to their SUV. "Let's get outta here," he told them, and Morgan and Reid began to head back as well, Aaron staying to help get Tony back to the car once they got him standing.

But then Tony was pushing away, and it wasn't until he lurched forward and vomited the milk he'd just ingested, that they understood why. Gibbs moved back toward him and Tony staggered to the side, then collapsed face-first into the grass before either agent could catch him.

Gibbs was at his side in an instant, instinctively checking for a pulse. After the relief of feeling his pulse, he sighed, "Tony. What's going on with you?"

"Is he okay?" Hotchner asked as he knelt at Tony's other side.

"Just unconscious. Help me get him into the car and let's get to DC..."

Tbc...

AN: As always, there's probably typos. Forgive me and them. lol


	11. Chapter 11

AN: My heart goes out to anyone who lost someone, or knows someone that was hurt in Boston this week. I really dislike how the government/law enforcement responded to all of this. I'm proud of the citizens of Boston, of what they did that day to help those in need.

*~.~*

Fornell had flown back to DC in order to make preparations for Gideon's arrival before the teams would get there with him. But upon trying to figure out the best solution for the unique case, he found it would be next to impossible to expose this without also exposing Tony. So now he was out in his vehicle dialing Gibbs' number.

After three rings, the other line picked up. _"Yeah. Gibbs."_

"Jethro, we might have a problem," he told him.

"_Got one already,"_ Gibbs replied.

"Oh yeah? Yours is probably better. Shoot."

"_Had to shoot Gideon. He was doing something to Tony. Made him real sick. He's been out for over two hours, now."_

"Gideon come around yet?"

"_Oh yeah. Doesn't take him long to wake up from these things, so we've known from experience. But we've got him heavily sedated. Problem on that end, though, is that we're not gonna be able to explain all the blood in his cell."_

"Well, therein lies my problem, Gibbs," Fornell told him. "There's no one _to _explain it to."

"_What's that mean?"_

"Means I dunno how we're gonna explain Gideon's...'special needs' without exposing Tony. And for that matter giving Gideon the ability to blackmail him; maybe even tell outta spite and put him in danger." There other line was silent for a few breaths.

"_So...what do we do, Tobias?" _

"Wish I knew," he replied. "It's why I'm calling. We've gotta find some place to hold him. Some place that _can _hold him and won't be susceptible to exposing this information to people who could leak it and bring it to public knowledge. Last thing we need is panic. And if people know about this stuff, they're gonna panic. And that'll be all kinds'a bad news for DiNutso."

All was quiet for a moment, and then Gibbs replied, _"I might know a place we can take him..."_

*~.~*

"I was never exactly prepared for this," McGee explained as he let the agents into his underground laboratory, flicking the lights on as he went. "But I did try and hypothesize how to contain him if I were to ever find him. And since the cell he was transported in seemed to stop his escape, I know this will."

It would've been impossible to get the cell down into the laboratory, they knew. But as McGee led them to the far side of the lab, they saw what he was talking about. It was a separate room, but it had a window looking into it. Within the room was what looked like a glass tank.

"You think that's good enough to hold him?" Morgan asked, skeptically. "That might've worked to hold Magneto, but there was an endless pit underneath it, if you forgot."

McGee smiled a little at the movie reference, and suddenly missed Tony, who was still passed out cold in the car. "It's not just ordinary glass," he told him.

"Is that...micro alloy made of palladium?" Reid looked more closely. "That stuff is expensive and not readily available to the public, or so I thought."

"I uh...it's not exactly mine," he replied. "I have some friends at Johns Hopkins who wanted me to come assist in an experiment involving the tank. Basically I'm storing it for them until further notice."

"And how is this supposed to contain him?" Gibbs asked. "It's glass. Strong glass, but how do we know he can't break out of it anyway?"

"He might be able to," McGee replied. "But there's a couple more elements to this cage. There's a hose above it connected to a water source. It's...kinda cruel and unusual if it turns out I'm wrong, but my theory is that if he doesn't have oxygen at all, he won't be able to heal himself. If he can, it'd mean waking up and drowning over and over. If that's the case, I'd rather hook him up to some kind of timed repetitive dosing of sedatives. Then at least he won't be aware of what's happening."

The agents were all silent for a long moment as they let the reality of what he was suggesting absorb. Gideon was a threat to anyone he came in contact with. But for the most part, he was a victim of mental illness. He wasn't a bad person for the sake of bringing harm to others. He literally felt he had no choice. But it didn't excuse his actions. It didn't excuse the fact that he'd taken countless lives, and there was no other way around it right now.

"Often times in cases of mental patients," Reid stated, "When they're hospitalized for the simple fact that they're a hazard to themselves and others, they're heavily medicated or sedated." The young man knew first-hand how they were treated, since his mother has been in a sanitarium for years now. "I feel like this is probably the best solution for the time being. There's no other facility capable of restraining him. Cruel and unusual, or not. We have to take into consideration that if we don't do this, more people will die..."

*~.~*

"It seems his vitals are all at normal levels," Ducky told Gibbs after examining Tony where he lay in the guest bed at the lead agent's house.

"This is the longest he's ever been out, Duck," Gibbs replied, worriedly. "He wasn't injured. Not anything we could see, anyway."

"For all intents and purposes, Anthony is comatose at the moment," Ducky replied. "All normal tests show that, anyway. And like you say, it was nothing you could see. However, that doesn't mean he wasn't injured. You said he was speaking to Gideon. Gideon was somehow communicating...telepathically to him. This part of the human brain isn't used, and yet Tony and Gideon seem to have tapped into it, but only with each other, unless he's hiding something," Ducky raised a brown. "It's possible that Gideon tried too much too fast; a desperate act to try and escape, and it was far too much for Tony's brain to handle. A brain injury could take exponentially longer to heal."

"A brain injury...Duck, that's what I'm afraid of. Gideon is the way he is because the brain doesn't heal back the way it's supposed to. Damaging him that way could mean..."

"Don't jump to conclusions, Jethro," Ducky interjected. "He'll be alright."

"You can't know that," he replied, quietly, as he shook his head.

"But I can believe it," the doctor told him with conviction. "Tony's been using parts of his brain none of us use, for a while now. He's overcome the healing process over time. That hasn't changed him. Not in the way its changed Gideon."

Gibbs' eye twitched with a realization. He'd never thought of the headaches and nosebleeds as Tony's head healing itself. He'd thought it was just a side effect of using the abilities. Suddenly it made a lot more sense why it got easier each time he used them. And Gibbs found himself running every event since the beginning through his head, trying to recall if there was anything different about Tony's reactions and thought process since before all of this happened.

"What happens if he wakes up and you're wrong?" Gibbs asked, almost whispering as if the hushing of the question lowered the possibility of it being...well, possible.

Ducky let out a quiet sigh. "As usual, worrying about such things before knowing the situation changes nothing. We shall cross that bridge, should we find ourselves before it, my friend." He looked back down to Tony's sleeping face. "And Anthony will have our complete support, no matter what happens."

*~.~*

"I have three separate web cams set up facing the cell," McGee told Ziva as he set up her computer to be connected to the feed. "Each of us will be able to monitor it at any point in time. Even from our phones. And I've made sure our access is private and secure. No one can trace where the feed is coming from, nor whomever is accessing it. Unless, of course, someone tries to hack into the feed from a source not our own."

"What will happen then?" Ziva asked after looking at the box on the screen that showed Gideon's upright body floating in the water-filled tank.

"Then, I'll be alerted immediately, and I'll switch everything so it's routing from a different designated server, changing all IP addresses and access points. I'll have to reconnect everyone again, but I doubt anyone will be able to get through the security protocols in place right now. No one even knows to look."

"And if he can somehow get out of the tank?"

"The system is set up to shut down everything if the tank is disturbed. It'd be like a very very small Fort Knox. And if he can get outta that, there's a tracking device under the skin on the back of his neck. With luck, he won't even notice it's there. Especially since it's already healed over."

"You have thought of everything," she looked at him proudly.

"I've had a long time to," he replied. Then he closed the laptop and turned in the chair to stand up. "I should go set up Tony's computer at Gibbs' house," he told her, "And see how he's doing."

"It has been nearly a day," Ziva calculated. "Gibbs said that he would let us know when Tony woke. He did not contact you, did he?"

"No, he hasn't," Ziva could tell he was concerned. "And I don't think Gibbs has slept much since we got back. If nothing else, I wanna just...keep watch so Gibbs can get some sleep."

"You believe he hasn't slept because he is worried about Tony?"

"He's worried about him waking up without anyone there to explain to him what's happened, I'm sure. Not that much has happened since he lost consciousness, but waking up this long after, in Gibbs' house after passing out several states away? It might be a little overwhelming."

"And have you slept, McGee?" she raised a brow. He narrowed his eyes at her for a moment. "I am simply suggesting that perhaps I should be the one to...take watch, so to speak. I am used to functioning on little sleep."

"We work for Gibbs. We're _all_ used to no sleep."

"As is Gibbs," she retorted.

"Okay, so I just wanna check in on them," McGee admitted. "Is that so much to ask? I've gotta set up the computer, too. So..."

"I understand," she smiled.

*~.~*

By sundown McGee has Tony's computer up and running with the incoming web cam signal, and somehow ended up passed out on the couch instead of at Tony's bedside to take over for Gibbs. In reality, Gibbs had had no intention of leaving it himself. He could sleep just as easily in the chair as he could out on the couch or in his bed.

He'd just checked on McGee moments ago, before going back to the bedroom with a newspaper that was at least three days old. He'd not had the chance to read it yet. And just as he'd begun flipped pages, he saw movement out the corner of his eye. Gibbs looked over and noticed Tony's breathing had changed; became a bit less steady of a pattern, and his eyes were moving under the lids. That hadn't been happening before now.

Gibbs set down his paper, moving to sit on the edge of the bed, and he put a hand on the agent's forehead. "Tony?" he whispered. "You with me?" he asked. But Tony didn't show signs that he'd heard him. His eyes continued to move wildly beneath their lids. "What's goin' on with you, DiNozzo?" Gibbs sighed, worried about his senior field agent.

After a couple of event-less minutes, Gibbs returned to his chair and kept half an eye on Tony. He read some article on the fourth page, but was preoccupied with thoughts of what Tony might be dreaming about...

TBC...


	12. Chapter 12

AN: Dear anonymous guest reviewers, thanks for the higher review number! But please, any more differences of opinion on matters unrelated to this story, please direct them to my private inbox. Thanks :)

That is all. On with the story.

*~.~*

_They've been running. All of them. Tony made it his life's duty to keep them safe from him. _

_It's been so long. It's been years that they've been doing this; trying to keep one step ahead of the man whose accident put Tony and his family in his path. Tony had hoped the madman would forget. That he'd let up after while. That enough deaths would erase his need for vengeance against him; the memory that it was even there, like everything else. But no matter what Tony did, he kept coming._

_Tony had woken up like this. Lying in what he'd thought was Gibbs' guest room bed feeling like it had just been that day they'd captured Gideon and was bringing him back to DC from Manhattan. Gibbs had been at his side, waiting for him to wake up._

"_Boss..." his voice croaked from misuse as he pushed up to sit. _

_Gibbs let out a small laugh. "Been a while since you called me that," the older man said._

_Tony narrowed his eyes as he took the cup Gibbs handed to him and took a long drink from it. His plan had been to ask what he meant, but he got distracted at the taste of what he'd thought was water. "Bleh...what the hell is this?" he grimaced._

_It was Gibbs' turn to narrow his eyes. "Your supplements, Tony. Abby figured out what you needed. Don't you remember that?" his head was tilted to the side a bit._

_And Tony just then realized there were a couple extra worry lines etched permanently into Gibbs' face. He chose that moment to look around the room a little more scrupulously from where he sat. "Gibbs...where are we?"_

_Gibbs' eyelid twitched ever so slightly. "You know it's best that I don't tell you, Tony. You're the one that came up with that much."_

_Tony was suddenly aware that it was getting harder to get enough air. "What...what's going on? Am I...did I... Did Gideon escape? Are we after him? What's going on, Boss?"_

_A sadness seemed to sweep over Gibbs' face before he had the chance to push it back down, and Tony felt, rather than saw, Gibbs' hand comfortingly grasp the back of his neck. "What's the last thing you remember?" he asked, quietly._

"_The last..." Tony shook his head as if to clear it. "Gideon was...we were transporting him back to DC. He started talking to me. But it was like...in my head. I wanted him out, I remember that much. But then I remember everything going dark. Then I woke up here." He met Gibbs' eyes in time to see him rapidly blinking back what were clearly trying to form as tears. The older man pushed up to stand and began pacing. "Boss...please tell me what the hell is happening..."_

_It was several long, anxious moments Tony sat there waiting for Gibbs to reply. But he stopped pacing eventually, and turned to face the younger man. "The date," he started. "What was the date? Do you remember?" his eyes looked almost pleading. Like he needed Tony to know this in order to continue._

"_Uh..." Tony tried to think. "March. The seventeenth, I think," he met Gibbs' eyes again. He knew that look. He wanted more information than what he'd just been given. Tony shrugged, slowly, then added, "Uh...2013...?" asking if that's what else he'd wanted. When Gibbs looked satisfied, for some reason it made Tony even more anxious._

"_It's April twentieth," Gibbs told him. Tony's brows pinched for a moment. He'd been out for over a month? "2018," Gibbs finished, and Tony looked at him with wide eyes for several of his quick heartbeats._

_Then he smiled widely. "This is a joke, right?" he laughed. "You guys... You really got me." He looked around the room and toward the door. "Where are you guys? That's real funny. Don't think I won't be retaliating!" _

"_Ziva's outside, digging," Gibbs shook his head dismissively. "Tony, this isn't a joke," he approached the side of the bed again, sitting down on the edge of it as he placed a hand on the younger man's shoulder. "I know this is a shock, Tony, but we've gotta get outta here before nightfall. And we've got work to do before we can leave."_

_Tony's smile had been long gone, and now he was on the verge of panic. "You're telling me five years have passed over me that I don't remember a single day of, and you want me to just get up and go without worrying about it?"_

"_I'll explain everything to you when we're out of here," Gibbs promised. "I just...I need you to trust me."_

_Tony swallowed. He searched his boss's eyes for a moment and drew in a breath, forcing himself to do what he usually did when Gibbs needed them to just follow his lead, no questions asked. "Okay, Boss," he finally replied. "Just...one question. How...I mean, I assume something happened that landed me in this bed with amnesia. What happened to me?"_

_He could see Gibbs' adam's apple bob at a particularly difficult lump he needed to swallow around. And when he met his eyes again, there was a sadness in them Tony hadn't seen in a long time. "Gideon found you yesterday," he told him. That answered Tony's question about whether he'd escaped. "You and...you and Tim were out trying to find some supplies. And we were too late to force him off..."_

"_Force him off?" _

"_There's a uh..." Gibbs shook his head, "Tim made a weapon that'll force Gideon away from us, long enough to get away when necessary. Can't remember all the scientific mumbo jumbo..."_

"_Okay... Okay, so what'd he do that you were too late? Was I...did he kill me?"_

_Gibbs swallowed again, pausing briefly before nodding. "He did. He uh..." Gibbs' eyes seemed to wander away, not knowing how to continue. And then Tony's gut clenched right along with the sudden __burning in his chest._

"_Where's Tim?" he asked. Gibbs met his eyes at the question, and now they were red and wet. Tony's breath came too fast, and not enough at the same time. "Where's Tim, Gibbs?" he asked again. "Where is he?" he refused to believe what his gut was telling him. _

"_We were too late," Gibbs whispered in reply. _

_Tony shook his head in disbelief and threw the blanket off of himself, turning to get up out of the bed. "McGee!" he called out, nearly running from the bedroom into the unfamiliar house. "Tim, where are you?" Tony made his way through each room until he found him. Until he found the motionless body lying on the empty living room floor. _

_Tim didn't look much different from when Tony last remembered seeing him. Scrawny and pale and just as long as him. But his eyes were closed and as Tony approached him, he realized that there was a blue tint to his skin. Gibbs watched as Tony collapsed to his knees with a gut-wrenching sob beside the younger man's body._

"_Oh god...no no no.." his hands hovered over Tim's body before touching his neck for a pulse that wasn't there, and then over his chest as if he could find something, anything; and injury or some indication of why. "No...no..." his voice cracked with the last word, and tears were streaming down his face with or without permission as he scooped his arms around his fallen friend's torso, pulling him into a one-sided embrace. "Tim...no...oh god no..." he sobbed, rocking absentmindedly. "I'm sorry... I'm so sorry... This is my fault. It's my fault, Tim, and I'm so sorry...oh god..."_

_And then there were hands on him, pulling him gently away. "It's not your fault, Tony," Ziva's voice was in his ear as he found himself embraced by a smaller body. "It's not your fault," her voice was filled with a sadness he'd only seen a rare occasion or two long ago. And he could only kneel there and be held, not knowing what to do in response. Her hand was suddenly on the back of his head, and her face pressed beside his. "We should have been with you..." _

_He let that sink in for a moment before responding. "This is my fault. Not any of yours. Gideon wants me, not you..." he pulled away. _

"_It is not your fault that Gideon wants you," she reminded him. "It is his fault, and his alone. For everything, Tony," she told him. _

_Ziva looked older. Paler and somehow more muscular than before. But the thing that stood out the most was her hair. Tony reached up, letting himself be distracted by it for a moment. "Your hair is short," he said, fingers touching just above where it ended behind her ears. She looked at him with a bit of confusion, before looking over at Gibbs. And without her eyes on him, Tony turned his gaze back to Tim, sadness renewed as he placed a hand on the younger man's head, brushing the hair away from his face..._

_*~.~*_

_Saying goodbye to one of his closest and dearest friends as they left the burial site, had been one of the hardest things Tony had ever done. It's all he could think about. He wasn't sure how much time had passed that he'd been staring out the passenger window as Gibbs drove them down the single-lane __road in the middle of nowhere. _

_Tony had always been afraid of losing his chosen family. The fact that he lost his last five years he had with Tim was beyond his emotional comprehension. And regardless of what Ziva had said, this was Tony's fault. Tim was dead because he was Tony's friend. No one could say any different. That was just a fact._

_As Tony began to slowly wander out of his inner thoughts, he started to notice something. He hadn't seen a single other vehicle on the road. Being so far out in the country, though he wasn't sure exactly where they were, the absence of actual other people hadn't much phased him. But they'd been on the road for hours and he hadn't seen one other car. _

_Now he'd been told that they were trying to keep off of Gideon's radar. That he could find them if Tony knew where they were. Gideon was able to see it, if Tony could. So they kept their location from Tony as best they could. But it was always just a matter of time before Gideon would figure it out, and they'd have mere hours to dodge his appearance. Sometimes not even that long._

_He also knew that Abby was in an undisclosed location. So was Ducky and Palmer, for that matter. They were safe. And that's what mattered. But he didn't know why they were the only car on this road. _

"_The apocalypse happen in the last five years?" Tony asked, a bit sarcastically. _ _"I haven't seen a single other person since I've been up." He watched as Gibbs glanced to Ziva in the rear view mirror. That made something in his gut clench again. "What? Guys what's... You've gotta tell me..."_

_After a moment, Ziva turned in her seat. "After his escape, Gideon was sure to make himself known," she explained. "And once that was accomplished, once the world could see the things he was capable of, his next agenda was exposing you. And by the time we realized that, it was too late," she told him, glancing to Gibbs for a moment. And when Tony saw her do that, he couldn't help but to glance to the rear view reflection of his boss. The older man looked...regretful. He looked like he felt guilty. "People came for you," Ziva continued. "They took you away; came right into NCIS and up into the bullpen and dragged you out." Her voice had begun to shake a bit, as though the drudged up memory hurt her to speak about. "There was nothing we could do," her voice tightened as she met Tony's eyes again. "They would not release you, even when our entire building threatened with drawn weapons."_

"_They'd had a signed warrant," Gibbs chimed in, voice strong even though Tony could sense something hidden in it. "Signed by the president. The grounds were that they needed to study you in order to know how to stop Gideon... It's when I knew your vision -the first one you'd ever had- was coming true. And I could do nothing to stop it..."_

"_But I'm not there now," Tony stated. "You must've gotten me out?"_

"_Once we realized that SecNav would have nothing to do with fighting for your release, we abandoned NCIS," Ziva told him. "All of us. Including Director Vance."_

"_Abandoned NCIS?" Tony got an incredulous look on his face._

"_It was necessary," Gibbs replied._

"_You gave up your careers...all of you...for me. I don't understand..."_

"_We gave up our places in that world, because that world decided to let an innocent American citizen suffer endless tortures for what they thought would be the greater good," Gibbs retorted. "That's not what I signed up for. And I sure as hell wasn't gonna sit idly by and let you suffer."_

"_By the time we got to you," Ziva's voice shook more now, "It was...awful. The things they had done to you..."_

"_What exactly were they trying to accomplish?" _

"_A way to kill Gideon," Gibbs told him. _

"_Why not just a way to trap him? Why all of this?"_

"_Because he'd begun mass-killing," Gibbs revealed. "Hundreds; thousands at a time."_

"_I- I don't..." Tony was speechless and confused._

"_He wants them to take very seriously the necessity of ending his life," Gibbs replied. "He wanted someone to find a way, where he couldn't. No matter what the cost." _

"_And once we were able to get to you, we realized that they had done something extremely stupid," Ziva jumped in. "They had attempted to synthetically recreate the Contingency compound, themselves, and tested it on several military subjects once they'd completed it. After we rescued you from that horrible place." Another awkwardly shared glance passed between Ziva and Gibbs. "It did not have the desired effect they'd hoped for."_

"_That's a very ominous way to say it didn't work," Tony replied, skeptically._

"_It might have, had they taken into account that the synthetic...um..." she shook her head, "I...something about the synthetic materials in the compound disintegrating at a rapid rate. McGee could better ex-" her sentence stopped short, and she turned forward in her seat. And as Tony watched her hand come up to her face to swipe her cheek, he was reminded that he wasn't the only one to lose a dear friend that day._

"_The instability of the synthetic compound caused the mental disintegration Gideon's been subject to, only at an extremely excelled rate," Gibbs finished for her. "Essentially, the subjects were medically driven into insanity. They kill everything they come in contact with. And everything that manages to survive their attack, becomes...infected. They become the same way." Tony was torn between shock of the news, and shock of Gibbs' McGee impression. The Gibbs he'd known wouldn't have even understood that explanation as was. But Tony guessed that being on the run from this very thing for five years would change that somewhat._

"_At first," Ziva picked back up, seemingly having collected herself again, "Washington, DC and the entire state of Virginia had been quarantined. But sooner than anyone could have predicted, the amount of infected people were rising up faster than they could be taken out. Evacuations could not happen fast enough."_

"_A lot of people left the country," Gibbs told him. "Some even overseas. We thought we'd be able to at __least seclude it to North America. But that didn't last very long."_

"_What the hell are you telling me?" Tony's entire body was numb with realization. "Did I just wake up on the real life set of The Walking Dead?"_

"_The what?" Gibbs narrowed his eyes in the mirror at him, and that for some reason gave Tony the slightest bit of comfort, knowing at least that part hadn't changed._

"_A television show that was quite famous before all of this," Ziva supplied. "It was about the zombie apocalypse, yes?" she glanced to Tony, who nodded._

"_Not zombies," Gibbs told him. "Zombies eat brains."_

"_Flesh. Any flesh," Tony corrected._

"_These things don't eat," Gibbs continued, ignoring the correction. "They don't do anything. They just destroy."_

"_Most of them," Ziva added. "Some of them simply...stare off into space. They are like...conscious cucumbers."_

"_Vegetables," Tony absentmindedly corrected._

"_A cucumber is a vegetable, is it not?"_

"_So wait wait...wait..." Tony shook his head to clear it. "You said Abby and Duck and the gremlin are all safe."_

"_There're safe havens all over the country," Gibbs told him. "We stay clear of them, for their own safety."_

"_You mean _I_ stay clear for their safety," Tony corrected, upset by the endless stream of ridiculously bad news. "Why are you out here with me? You should be someplace safe. Tim should've been someplace..." Tony swallowed against the rapidly growing lump in his throat. _

"_In the beginning, it was to distract Gideon from the safe havens," Ziva said. "The threat of contaminated Contingency victims has been almost completely neutralized. We are less in danger of an attack from them, than we are from being found by Gideon."_

"_Now we're attempting to draw him to us," Gibbs told him._

"_Why would we do that?" Tony asked incredulously. _

_Another Ziva-Gibbs glance. _

"_Can't tell you that yet," he replied. "Not until we know the head-shot did what you thought it would."_

"_W...what?" Tony was right back to being confused. _

"_You've always had this theory that a massive head wound would break up the connection Gideon's got you tethered to," Gibbs told him. _

"_But you were also afraid that it would cause memory loss. And Gibbs would not let it happen, anyway," Ziva told him. "It is not an easy thing to ask a friend to do."_

"_I asked you to shoot me in the head?" Tony asked no one in particular. _

"_Few times," Gibbs replied. _

"_So wait... If Gideon got the drop on Tim and me before you got there to stop him..." _

"_We don't know what happened, Tony," Gibbs replied. "All we know is we heard the gun shot and headed in your direction. Then we found McGee's body; heart stopped and lips blue. And then we found you. Gun in hand and a hole in your head." Tony heard the older man swallow after completing the statement. _

"_I shot myself," Tony realized. "I... Why didn't Gideon just take me? If he was right there, why didn't he just..." and then it started coming back to him. The moment Gideon was so loud in his mind that there was very little of himself left in it. _

_**He remembered standing there in the woods with Tim. He remembered the sensation of every nerve ending inside of his body pulling at the same time. He'd been suddenly slammed with the thought of the younger man with him; the empty dark feeling he'd get in his dreams. The one he'd get when Gideon was in his head... "McGee...get outta here," he'd told him.**_

"_**What? Tony, what-"**_

"_**Get out! Tim, run!" and that's the last he'd been able to say before Gideon was able to work through him; to force an ability Tony didn't know he'd had. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't let out his breath or pull any in. All he could do is watch the moment Tim realized what was happening, and turned to run- but then Tony stopped him. Just by holding up a hand. And the next moment his hand was closing and Tony could feel it; feel Tim's heart in his hand even though it wasn't really there. And he looked to Tim, saw the struggle on his face; the panic. And all Tony could do was scream out. A scream that never actually came, but somehow gave Tony some sort of control back over himself, and all he could do right then and there was grab for his gun and end Gideon's ability to use him...**_

"_Oh god," Tony's head was buried in his hands, and some part of him realized that the car had stopped and there was a breeze hitting him from one side._

"_Tony, what is it?" Gibbs sounded anxious beside him, and Tony felt Gibbs' hands on his shoulders trying to shake him out of the flashback._

"_He used...he used me to kill him," his voice was cracking through every word and he was aware suddenly that his face was wet with his own tears. "He used me to kill Tim. Oh god..."_

"_Tony..." The younger agent looked over at him then, hearing something in Gibbs' voice he couldn't remember ever hearing before. Gibbs looked...afraid. Afraid of _him_. "Tony, this isn't your fau-"_

"_You have to get away from me," Tony interjected. "You and Ziva. Leave me here," he pushed out of the open door and out into the middle of the empty road. "Leave me here and get as far away from me as you can."_

"_I'm not leaving you alone," Gibbs retorted._

"_I won't let him kill you, too!" he shouted. "You're not safe with me!"_

"_But we may have a way to end this, Tony!" Ziva yelled where she stood on the other side of the car. "Before he died, McGee designed something. A weapon that could end Gideon for good."_

"_W-why are you...don't...what if he can hear this?" Tony stumbled fearfully over his words._

"_Because we do not believe he can hear through you right now," she replied. _

"_Even so," Gibbs added, "We'll need him to come to us in order to use it. But there's a charging time for the weapon. It's why we didn't get to you and Tim in time. It wasn't ready."_

"_So...so what do we do now?" Tony asked. But before anyone could answer, the ground began to rumble under their feet. It was almost like a train was close by, growing nearer to them by the moment as the shaking grew in intensity. _

"_Anthony!" a loud roar-like voice boomed out over around them. _

"_No..." Tony shook his head in disbelief. "No!" he turned to Gibbs and Ziva. "Go now! Go!" he begged them desperately. "I'll buy time! Get out of here, now!"_

_With a moment of hesitation, Gibbs popped the hood and pulled the cheesecloth cover from over top of the weapon, flicking on a switch before closing the trunk again, and he and Ziva piled back into the car and began tearing down the road as fast as they could. Tony just needed to buy them some time._

_Tony watched the car as it moved away from him, expecting for Gideon to come from the other direction, coming up behind him. Instead, the unthinkable happened. An enormous cloud of unearthly dust pressed forward toward the front of the car, and the vehicle was suddenly lifted and pushed violently backward, flipping before it landed mere feet from where Tony was still standing. _

_It all happened so fast, Tony's body was moving toward the wreck before his mind had a chance to process what he'd just witnessed. "Gibbs! Ziva!" he called out as his feet carried him toward the twisted smoking metal._

"_Don't bother," Gideon's voice sounded behind him. Tony stopped, but didn't turn around. "They're already dead, Tony."_

_Tony's chest heaved with his heated breaths. "How did you find me?" he growled._

"_I've been riding on your waves since we killed your little friend, Tony," he smiled._

_"Why...why did you have to kill them?" Tony felt completely defeated, now. They were gone...his __friends. His family. Gideon had taken them away. _

"_So that you would understand," Gideon replied. "So that you would join me. And help me."_

"_We had a way, and you just destroyed it with my friends!" he shouted. "You killed...you killed them..."_

"_Wake up, Tony. We did it together."_

"_No..."_

"_Tony, wake up!"_

"_I-"_

"Wake up, DiNozzo, come on!" it was Gibbs' voice over him, and suddenly he was on his back looking up. Gideon was gone. Gibbs was standing there looking down at him with concern. "You with me?" he asked.

"Gibbs?"

TBC...


	13. Chapter 13

AN: Sorry this took so long and is so short. Blah blah blah life blah blah blah excuses...

*~.~*

The realization that he was back in Gibbs' house, and that the past five years that had seemingly gone by were merely a dream, threw Tony into a strange state of uncertainty. Nothing seemed real, and he wasn't sure what to believe in that moment.

Gibbs hovered over him wildly, unsure of how to calm the younger man who was currently hyperventilating and slightly flailing about the bed. So he decided to grab a hold of his wrists and pin him down so that he would get his attention. "Tony, look at me!" he shouted. And when Tony's eyes met his, he asked, "What's wrong? Talk to me. Tell me what's wrong, Tony."

A sound like a sob escaped Tony's throat as he tried really hard to believe what he was seeing. And then the image of Tim's cold, dead body flashed into his thoughts, and he was suddenly fighting against Gibbs' grip on his wrists. "Please let me go!" his voice cracked and parched from lack of use.

"That depends on what you're thinkin'," Gibbs' brows pinched, concerned about the agent's mental state.

"I just..." his breath shuddered out of him, then, and all of the fight left him at once. "I need to see McGee," he said, and Gibbs saw the wetness forming in the younger man's eyes. "Please... I need to know it wasn't real. I need..."

Gibbs slowly released his wrists as Tony sat up. "I think you already know what's real, Tony," he told him. "Whatever you feel you need to see, it's just for reassurance." He watched as Tony stood from the bed, unsteady on his feet for a moment. "Tony, what's the last thing you remember?" Gibbs narrowed his eyes.

Tony's eyes flitted around in the air between them as he attempted to comprehend how to respond to the question. "W-waking up... Waking up and you asking me that... But it was..."

"It was what?"

"What's today?"

"Tuesday."

"No...no the year."

"The..." Gibbs' eye twitched for a moment. "2013."

Tony swallowed, nodding, and Gibbs could see there was a great amount of relief that suddenly washed over the younger man. "Okay. We were on the way back. We had Gid- Oh god please tell me Gideon didn't escape," his breathing suddenly picked back up. "Please..."

"No, he didn't," Gibbs assured him, standing mere feet from him now.

Tony let out another breath, nodding again.

"You remember coming back from New York," Gibbs wanted him to continue.

"Yeah. I remember...Gideon was in my head. He was talking to me and...I can't remember what he said, exactly, but I couldn't make it stop. I couldn't...but then...then I did," he was remembering more clearly now, but almost like he'd been looking at it from outside of himself. "There was something...tethering him there and I...somehow I broke it; pushed him away. But it hurt...god it hurt so much I couldn't breathe... And that's the last thing I remember, Boss," he met his eyes again. "Please tell me everyone is okay..."

"You've been out for just over twenty-four hours," Gibbs told him. "We've all been worried about you. Everyone is okay."

"Tony?" The SFA spun around at the sound of Tim's voice and saw him standing in the doorway looking a bit sleepy and disheveled. "You're awake," he smiled.

"McGee..." Tony crossed the few steps to him within seconds, and Tim saw the shining in the agent's eyes before he found himself wrapped up in an impossibly tight hug, instinctively grabbing around Tony's back if nothing more than to keep from toppling backward.

"You okay?" Tim's brows furrowed with a bit of concern and he glanced over at Gibbs, who seemed just as void of explanation.

"I'm better," he replied, almost whispering. Then he pulled away. "Gideon. Where is he?"

"Being held in my lab," Tim told him.

"What?" Tony seemed to panic.

"Tony, it's okay. He's secure there, and we're monitoring him at all times. I'll show you, okay? Just come with me, and I'll show you on the computer."

Tony followed him out to the living room still feeling like he was in a daze; disconnected to some level. And he found himself seated in the middle of the couch with the other agents on either side of him, looking at the laptop screen on the coffee table in front of them. It took him a moment to realize what he was looking at.

"He's in water?" Tony's brows twitch in confusion and wonder. "Is he...is he dead?"

"Well," Tim let out a breath, "From what I can tell, he hasn't regained any vitals. We have monitor leads on him, and if any of them should go off, a sedative will automatically administer through the IV we have him connected to," he pointed to the cables and tubes leading to Gideon's body in the tank. "So if he does come back in the tank, he'll be sedated before actually drowning. This'll be a continuous thing. But since he's not come around yet, and the last time we saw him recover from a gunshot wound to the head only took minutes to repair, my guess is that since there's no oxygen available to his body, it's not healing itself."

"You're sure this'll work?" Tony asked is almost a whisper as he stared at the man on the screen.

"As sure as anyone can be about this," Tim replied with confidence.

Tony let out a breathy sob of relief, his head falling into his hands, as his elbows planted on his knees. "It must've just been a nightmare, then," he said, voice cracking a bit. "Not a vision...God I hope not a vision."

"What'd you see?" McGee asked, glancing over to Gibbs for a moment to see that he'd been waiting to ask the question himself.

Tony's hands slid back into his hair and his eyes fell on the screen again. "I woke up to a completely different world," he told them. "Gideon had escaped on the way back from Manhattan. And five years had gone by; I just didn't remember them. The world was... It was like the apocalypse. Overrun with experimental beings the government mistakenly made in order to try and stop Gideon. We were on the run, you guys and Ziva and me. But..." he swallowed, "The day I woke up with those five years gone..." he didn't realize how hard it'd be to speak the dream aloud. "Gideon," he continued, "Somehow he'd figured out how to use me through whatever this...connection is that we have mentally. He made me kill you, McGee," his voice cracked again and he hid his face in his hands once more.

"It wasn't real," Tim replied, a hand going to Tony's back without a thought.

"He'd've made me kill all of you," Tony continued. "But I'd had a theory. At least, that's what you told me, Boss," he looked over to Gibbs as he straightened and put his hands on his knees. "A head injury would maybe sever the connection. At least for a while. But it would be at the expense of some of my memory, which was why I'd forgotten those five years." Tony seemed to begin to think harder, as if the images in the dream were starting to drift away. "You said you wouldn't do it," he continued. "Wouldn't shoot me, Boss. Didn't wanna risk me losing anything. But I had to. When I saw what he could do, I had to..." Gibbs could hear Tim swallow beside Tony, and his eyes found the man's face for a moment; long enough to see the level of empathy he was feeling at his friend's words.

"And then we were back on the run. But you had a weapon. McGee, you'd designed a weapon to try and end Gideon for good, and we just needed to draw him in and try it. And then we could feel him coming. It was like a plane flying low to the ground, that sound and the way everything shakes...and I told you to run; get out of there and leave me behind so he couldn't use me again. But...but it didn't matter. He...he took you away from me. He killed you..."

"Why?" Tim shook his head. "Why would it benefit him to kill us?"

"So that I'd have nothing left. So I'd know how he felt, and I'd join him in finding a way. But the idiot...destroyed the one thing that might've..."

"It was just a nightmare, Tony," Gibbs spoke, putting a hand on his shoulder and squeezing. "That's not gonna happen. No matter what we have to do to make sure he never gets outta that lab, we're not gonna let that happen."

"Wait," McGee furrowed a brow in thought and Tony looked over at him. "No headache when you woke up, right?"

Tony thought for a moment. "No headache."

"Then it wasn't a vision," Tim smiled a bit, relieved by this fact. "It was a bad nightmare, but it wasn't a vision."

Something seemed to change in Tony's face and demeanor as he allowed that information to click in his head.

"And whatever you thought you had to do to sever your connection," Gibbs told him, "I don't think you'd have to do it _that_ way. Whatever you did to cut Gideon's voice outta your head on the way back from New York, it worked."

"And it had Gideon screaming his head off," Tim added. "I had to shoot him to stop it."

"My orders," Gibbs told him. "Whatever ya did, it hurt you somehow, but you've got your memory. I was worried for a while, with how long it took you to wake up. But it seems like you're okay."

"I'm better than okay, knowing that dream was just a fabrication of my mind," Tony smiled his infamous smile.

Tbc...


	14. Chapter 14

AN: Sorry it took forever. Typos pre-apologized for. Enjoy!

*~.~*

Three weeks went by without event. Gideon remained securely imprisoned, and life seemed to go on like normal. Two cases had run through the MCRT and been solved. Everything was as usual, and even Tony seemed not to have any issues with his abilities, nor a need to use them in a while.

Their Tuesday morning began fairly routinely. They were working cold cases, longing for something else to come in. Ziva had brought coffee and doughnuts, and was in a cheery mood no one could quite place, but no one was complaining, either.

Things were so slow, McGee offered to go pick up lunch for the team, and Gibbs sent Tony along with him since the senior field agent was starting to go a bit stir crazy and he was afraid the kid would pop if he didn't get outside for a while. Tony happily agreed and the two had gone to pick up burgers from a nearby diner.

They were on the way back to the office, talking casually about one of the cold case files they'd been reading into that day, when Tony's head starting doing that buzzy achy thing it did right before a full-blown migraine. Tim knew right away, before the pain started to kick in, just by how Tony had started to get a bit fuzzy in his thoughts.

"You okay, Tony?" he asked, concerned as he glanced away from the road to look at his partner.

"I uh...I dunno..." Tony shook his head as if to clear it.

"Okay I'm pulling over," Tim decided, seeing a gas station up ahead.

"No, it's...it's okay..."

"No, it's not," Tim replied. "Just keep talking to me, alright?" he told him as he pulled into the thankfully empty lot, grateful that the store was open.

"McGee...I...I think..."

"Yeah, I know," Tim replied as he cut the engine and turned toward Tony's quickly crumbling stature. He pulled off his own seatbelt before doing the same for Tony, and as the older man began to fold in on himself, whimpering against the pain, Tim pulled him over against his chest, supporting him through the onslaught of whatever was about to flash through his head.

What he hadn't expected was the sudden scream-like sound that came through gritted teeth, and Tony's hand grasping onto one of Tim's arms that was wrapped around the front of him. This was a bad one. And it had been a while since anything like this had happened, and the intensity of it had him worried.

"Sir, is he okay? You need me to call an ambulance?" the store owner had been sweeping up the mat at the front door when he heard and saw the distressed agent.

"It's a migraine attack," Tim replied. "They can't do anything for it. But it should be over in a minute," he tried to remain calm.

"Can I get you something?" he looked nervous.

"Milk. Whole milk, please. I'll pay you when-"

"It's okay. I'll be right back," he hurried off into the store, and Tim returned his full attention to the suffering man in his arms.

Just a minute had gone by before the owner was back out with a quart of while milk, handing it through the open window. "What's it for?" he asked. "If you don't mind me asking."

"It helps him. When he comes out of it, it helps him for some reason," he explained.

"Oh... Well, if you need anything else, let me know. We're not busy, and I'll keep an eye out the door."

"Thanks," Tim replied, putting the carton in the cup holder. It seemed like an eternity, but it was just a couple of minutes later that Tim felt Tony's body ease up the tension some. The SFA groaned as he stirred back into reality. "Tony, you with me?" he asked.

"Guh..." Tony pushed himself up, slowly, hands moving to cover his eyes.

"Here," McGee picked up the milk and opened it, handing it to his partner, who willingly accepted. "Tony?" his concern grew when he saw tracks of tears on the agent's face as he chugged the entire contents of the container. He gave him a few moments, waiting for him to catch his breath and get himself together. "Tony, what'd you see?"

Tony turned to him, opening his eyes. "I..." he swallowed around the lump in his throat, feeling unable to continue the statement. "We need to get back," he said and his eyes moved somewhere into the air between them.

Tim furrowed his brow for a moment, then nodded. "Okay." He moved to put on his seat belt and start the car.

"We need to get back, right now," Tony said more urgently.

"Okay, I'll get us there, fast, alright?" he assured him, glancing from the road to his partner as her tore out of the lot. "But can you tell me what you saw and why we need to hurry back?"

Tony looked a bit distressed as he shook his head, "I can't let it happen. I gotta stop it..."

"Stop what?"

"Can't let Gibbs leave..."

"Why, Tony? What happens? What'd you see?" he grew more nervous by the moment.

"Jolie Simon," he replied.

"The...the witness in our cold case?" Tony nodded. "What about her?"

"We go to talk to her today."

"And?"

"And...she kills Gibbs..." he said, then turned slowly to look at Tim, eyes glassy from the memory of the vision.

Tim pressed down harder on the gas...

*~.~*

"I believe she may know more than what she led on," Ziva told Gibbs after looking into one of the witnesses in the cold case they'd been going through.

Gibbs looked at the information she'd handed to him, then looked up at her, thinking for a moment. "DiNozzo and McGee will be back soon with lunch. Witness doesn't live far from here. I'll go bring her in. Shouldn't take long."

"Are you sure you do not want me to come with you?"

"Just a witness, Ziva," he said as he stood and grabbed his badge and weapon. "Be back in twenty." He headed to the elevator, taking it down to the parking garage. The trip to the witness's house didn't take long, with his driving.

He parked in front of the house and got out just as his cell rang. Checking the ID before he answered, he saw that it was Tony calling. But as he pressed the side button to answer the call, the phone twisted awkwardly in his hand and it went crashing to the asphalt. Sighing, he bent down to pick it up, checking for damage and realizing the screen was now cracked.

"Great," he sighed, attempting to get the dial screen to come up anyway to no avail. He shoved it in his pocket and made a mental note to requisition a new one when he got back to the office, and headed toward the house...

*~.~*

"He has gone to bring in one of the witnesses from the cold case," Ziva told Tony over the phone.

"_Ziva, we need the address, now!" _he shouted on the other line. _"Gibbs is in danger!"_

"How would you..." she stopped mid-thought, realizing now how he would know. "Not far from here. I'll text you the address and meet you there..."

*~.~*

"Jolie Simon?" Gibbs asked when the front door cracked open and a woman's face appeared in the small opening.

"Who wants to know?" she asked in a small voice.

Gibbs pulled out his badge. "Special Agent Gibbs, NCIS," he informed her. "I'd like to bring you back to the office. We have a few questions for you about the Shaddon murder case."

"Can't leave," she told him, quickly. "Can't leave my Mama here alone, Agent Gibbs."

Gibbs cocked his head a bit. "Then maybe I can ask you right here, Miss Simon. Mind if I come inside?"

Jolie looked at him skeptically for a long moment. "Can I see that badge again?" she asked.

"Sure," he told her, calmly, pulling the badge back out and holding it up closer to her.

She looked at it long and hard, then turned her gaze back to Gibbs. "Shaddon was murdered years ago," she said. "Why're y'all comin' around askin' questions again?"

"We just want to make sure we didn't miss anything."

"I told you everything I know; everything I saw."

"But the agents working the case back then might've failed to document it all," Gibbs told her. "You want us to catch the killer, don't you?"

"It's been over a decade, Special Agent Gibbs," she spat. "You haven't caught them yet. What makes you think anything I have to say will change that fact?"

"Truth is, in might not," Gibbs raised a brow. "But I won't know that until I can hear the story straight from you."

Jolie stared at him once again, seeming to think that over. Then she closed the door and Gibbs could hear the chain being taken off its track before the door clicked back open. "Quiet, now," she told him. "Don't wanna wake up Mama."

Gibbs nodded and waited for her to open the door all the way, to step in. He got a strange feeling in his gut once he crossed over the threshold. But he chalked it up to the place looking like it hadn't seen the light of day since the seventies. Olive green shag carpeting, gold-yellow furniture, antique-framed photographs lining the shelves. Even a television that Gibbs recognized as something he'd seen as a kid. The house looked like some dying version of a family sitcom from his childhood. It smelled musty, and there was a layer of dust on every surface of the house.

"Have a seat," Jolie motioned toward the couch. "Would you like some tea? I was making some before you got here."

"Sure," he accepted, just to be polite and break the ice a bit. He cautiously sat on the couch, almost afraid it'd crumble beneath him. He watched the small middle-aged woman walk over to the cupboard to pull out an extra tea cup. He glanced around the room for another few moments until she came in with the tea. "Thank you," he said as he took his cup from her. "Can you tell me what you remember from that day?" he asked, wanting to get the show on the road.

"Well, it was a long time ago," she began, glancing toward the staircase. "But I remember it like it was yesterday..." She began to explain how she'd been walking home from the store alone that night, and heard a fight in the alley where Shaddon's body was found. She'd stopped and stood back against the wall, afraid to be seen once she heard the gun shot. She'd hid in a doorway to the adjacent apartment building and waited. Then she saw a man running away. "He was very tall; over six feet. It was dark, but I'm fairly certain he was a black man. He was wearing a brown leather jacket and black pants. He had a gun in his hand as he was running away. Once he was out of sight, I rang the buzzer to the apartment and told them to call an ambulance; that someone had been shot. I waited for them to show up."

"Did you see Shaddon's body?" Gibbs asked.

"Only after they put him on the gurney," she replied. "It's when I knew he was dead."

"Hm," Gibbs nodded, knowing the woman was lying. "You told our agents that you'd gone into the alley after the man ran away," he countered, calmly. "That you checked his pulse and he was dead before they got there."

"Oh," Jolie looked down for a moment. "I must've mixed it up in my head since then."

"And you were the only one to hear the shots fired," he continued. "Kinda strange when it was right beside an apartment building, don't you think?"

She met his eyes, then, and he saw something change in them. "I suppose," she said, setting her cup down on the coffee table. "Excuse me a moment, Agent Gibbs. I need to use the restroom."

Gibbs simply nodded and watched her head out of the room. He set his cup down quietly and stood from the couch, taking another look around while Jolie was gone. He realized there was a bedroom door just barely cracked open off of the living room by the bottom of the staircase, and his gut was drawing him toward it.

He cautiously walked to the door, looking back to make sure Jolie wasn't in sight, and listening for signs of her being done in the bathroom. He pushed the door open slowly, and was hardly prepared for the sight before him. Jolie has said her mother was sleeping. But it was obvious that her mother was long dead. If Tony were there, he'd mention that movie with the hotel and the murderer...Psycho, the name came to him.

The cock of a gun sounded behind him, and he straightened up and turned around. Jolie had a revolver pointed at him, and he could see from there that it was fully loaded.

"You shouldn't have gone snoopin'," she told him.

Gibbs held his hands off to the sides of him. "Let's talk about this, Jolie," he told her, calmly.

"Nothin' to talk about, Agent Gibbs. You seen what you shouldn't have and now you're a problem for me. You'll have to go."

"Just think about what you're doing," he told her. "You kill me, you think I won't be missed? You think no one knows where I am right now?" They both heard when a car came screeching up the road. "What'll you do, Jolie? When you kill me, what do you think will happen?"

"I don't need no advice from you," she spat.

Something clicked in Gibbs' head, then. "You killed Shaddon, didn't you?" he narrowed his eyes. "You killed him right here, in this house, for seeing that your mother was dead. That would've ruined the scam you've got going, wouldn't it? You've been collecting your dead mother's social security for over a decade, and Shaddon was a threat to that, so you killed him. Then you dragged him into the alley in town and acted like it had nothing to do with you. You'd have gotten away with it, too..."

"No one suspected me," she hissed. "Why'd you have to go...snoopin' around?!" she frantically waved her gun.

And suddenly McGee was bursting through the door, Tony right behind him, and Gibbs was yelling for them to stop as the rapid gunfire came from every direction. He felt a spray of blood on his face, making him flinch and blink. And when he opened them again, he saw Jolie fall dead to the floor, and realized that both of his agents were already down.

"Tim!" Tony was shaking, turning around on the floor to face his injured partner. They'd both been shot. Tony in the stomach, and Tim in the side of the neck, and Tony scrambled to cover it tightly with his hand as he scooped the younger agent in his lap. "Tim, you're gonna be okay," he told him, cupping the other side of his face in his free hand and meeting his pained eyes. He looked away only once, to glance up at Gibbs who the house phone to his ear shouting for paramedics.

"T-Tony..." Tony's eyes shot right back down to Tim's. "W-we saved...Gibbs?"

"Gibbs is fine," he told him. "And you're gonna be fine, Tim, okay?"

"N-not y-your f-f-fault..." he shook, his face becoming pale from the blood loss, only prolonged by Tony's hand as he felt it flowing through his fingers anyway.

Tony shook his head," You're not gonna die, you hear me? You can't. I can't..." Tim's hand reached up and held weakly onto Tony's arm. And their eyes held until Tim's last breath, when his grip loosened completely, and his arm fell back to the floor. "No," Tony shook his head. "No!" he shouted, pulling McGee to his chest, feeling the warmth of his own blood leaving his body, and it was the only thing he felt besides the rage and devastation as he held to Tim with every ounce of strength in his body.

Gibbs hand dropped from where it held his phone to his ear as he looked at his agents. He couldn't remember ever seeing Tony so horrified, and he knew McGee was dead in his SFA's arms. Gibbs felt his knees go weak. All of this...for this suspect he was just supposed to bring in.

He took the few steps it took to get to Tony's side and dropped down beside him, realizing that he was bleeding pretty badly. But as he reached out to touch him, something happened. At first he thought Tony's body was getting ready to heal itself. But this was different. Tony screamed out, not in agony, but in anguish, and something began to almost glow from him, and he watched his body begin an unearthly quake. Gibbs was frozen where he knelt, helpless as he watched this all happen.

Then something unexpected happened. McGee was suddenly gulping in air, back arching with the effort, and as his eyes opened, Gibbs would've sworn they were glowing for the briefest of moments. McGee was alive...

And then Tony was limply falling back into the floor, unconscious. Not healing. Bleeding heavily from the gunshot wound in his stomach.

Gibbs was sprung back into action, tearing off his over shirt and pressing it to the wound. "Tony!" he shouted. "Tony, stay with me!"

tbc...


	15. Chapter 15

AN: Anyone that didn't get a reply from me, either your settings weren't allowing it, or the site is being wonky still. Apologies, but consider this my giant thank you for reviewing :)

Also, someone pointed out that Gibbs' phone was busted so how was he calling the paramedics, and I should've specified more clearly that it was the house phone... yeah...that's it. It was the house phone o.o. LOL It has been edited to meet those qualifications. Thanks for the head's up xD Sometimes I get so into the drama of the scene that those little tidbits get away from me. The non-working cell was something I needed to add in after the fact because duh, Tony would at least try to call and warn him. But yeah.

*~.~*

Gibbs was in the in-take room at the ER with McGee. The doctors had just finished checking him over, and the lead agent had taken to wiping the blood off of Tim's exposed shoulder, appraising the still-present shock on the younger agent's face. He gently wiped with the wet cloth, looking briefly at the minor cut on his throat that had, at one point, been a fatal gash through his carotid.

"Tim," he said, softly, meeting the young man's eyes. "You okay?"

"I..." he wasn't sure how to respond. He wasn't sure what had happened to him. "Why isn't Tony healing?" he settled for asking, looking into Gibbs' eyes pleading for an answer.

Gibbs shook his head. "I dunno, McGee. But whatever happened, I think he saved you."

"But we came to save _you_," he told him. "Tony had a vision. We were on our way to save you. Jolie Simon was going to kill you."

That explained why they'd shown up as quickly as they had. Gibbs had wondered after the fact. And the fact that he was supposed to die that day only phased him for a few solid moments before he retrained his concentration back on McGee. He wiped the rest of the blood from the man's shoulder and tossed the bloody rag into the trash can. "You saved my life, Tim," he told him, hands going to both of Tim's shoulders. "That bullet was meant for my head, and you blocked it. You'd have died to save me."

"Of course I would, Boss," Tim's eyes narrowed. "Same would go for any of you. And you'd do the same for us."

"And so would Tony," he told him.

They were silent for a long thoughtful moment. Then Tim said, "How did he do it? How did he save me? I thought I was...dead."

"I think you might've been," Gibbs said. "I don't know how he did it. But he did. And I, for one, am glad."

"As am I," Ziva sounded from the doorway where she had suddenly appeared standing in it. "And I am certain he is, as well."

"Have you heard anything?" Gibbs asked. She'd been keeping an eye out for doctors in the hall.

"Nothing yet. Ducky arrived about twenty minutes ago and went in to see if he can find anything out."

"We'll have to pull him outta here when he starts healing."

"I don't believe that will be happening, Jethro," Ducky came in behind Ziva, looking rather drained.

"Duck?" Gibbs was suddenly afraid for Tony's life.

"Anthony isn't showing any signs of healing at any abnormal rate," the doctor informed them. "His usual body-response time is far earlier than the amount of time that has accumulated since the initial injury. The bullet didn't hit any major organs, but the amount of blood loss is great. They're transfusing him, now that he's been sewn back together. In short, he looks like any typical gunshot victim. Not one that has special abilities."

"You think it's because he drained himself to heal me?" Tim asked.

"While I have nothing else to base the assumption on, I would have to agree that that's the best possible explanation at this point in time..."

*~.~*

It was nearing midnight. Tony still hadn't woken up, and McGee hadn't left his bedside since first entering the room earlier that day. Gibbs had been back and forth between the office and taking care of the disastrous outcome of their investigation into the not-so-much cold case and all it had entailed, and coming back to check in on not just Tony, but also Tim. He'd sneak up to the doorway and see the young man sitting there near tears, but as soon as he would realize that Gibbs was there, he'd straighten up and put on a brave face.

And as much as Gibbs and Ducky had tried, they were unable to interest him in eating. So Gibbs played the best card he'd have in relation to McGee. He sent Abby. And she'd been waiting for the chance, anyway, because knowing that something was wrong with Tony had been killing her. As much as she'd been needed at NCIS that day, after everything that'd happened, she wanted to see her boys more.

"Timmy," McGee looked up to the door to see Abby as she cautiously entered, her gaze switching back and forth between him and Tony.

Tim stood. "Abby, I'm sorry..." he almost whispered, his voice cracking.

"Oh, Timmy," Abby rushed over and drew him into a crushing hug. "You've got nothing to be sorry for."

"He would be fine if it wasn't for me," he clung to her small frame, arms wrapped around her back and shoulders.

"You'd be dead if he hadn't done whatever he did," it was clear that she was crying, now. "And he's still alive. He'll get better, I know he will," she pulled away, keeping hold of his biceps and looking him in the eye as she collected herself. "You believe me, don't you?"

"I want to," he said, looking over at Tony's pale face and sunken eyes. "Look at him, Abs. He doesn't look any better at all. It's something he did...something he did that saved me, and now he can't get better..."

"Come sit down with me, okay?" Abby took his hand and led him to the small couch that sat on one side of the room. "Now I need you to realize something, okay? You know that one of Tony's biggest fears since he...you know, since the accident...was that he would be left all alone, like Gideon. That he'd out live us all. His biggest fear was losing us, Tim. And he'd have done anything to save any one of us. No matter what it ended up costing him. He's still alive. _You're_ still alive. That's what's important. Right?"

"I...yeah, I guess so."

"Well, it turns out that saving you might've actually saved _him_," she told him.

"I don't understand," he shook his head, confused.

"Ducky brought back a blood sample taken here in the hospital after Tony's transfusion was completed. You know how I'd been trying to figure out why the milk was helping him, and had those samples to work with before?"

Tim nodded, "I know that you never quite figured out what or why it was helping, but that it clearly reacted when his blood was exposed to the milk."

"Exactly. Well, I was examining the blood sample Ducky brought back from today, and I couldn't tell if there was a difference from the earlier samples. Not until I thought to do the milk test." Her face took on a more worried look. "When I did the test this time, there was no reaction to it at all," she told him. "It did nothing."

"W...what's that mean?" McGee asked, glancing over to Tony again.

"I'm not sure," she replied. "But I know what it _could _mean." Tim looked back to her. "It could mean that Tony's ability to heal like he could is no longer there. It could mean more than that," she continued. "It could mean that his abilities are gone, somehow. Like he...somehow transferred them...to you."

The agent's eyes widened and he shook his head in denial. "No way. No."

"There's only one way to know," she told him. "Well maybe more than one way, but the one way I could try and find out, is if you gave me a blood sample to check out-"

"No, Abby," he stood. "I don't have his abilities. Look at my neck. It's not healed all the way. I don't have any other symptoms. It's not possible."

"Well then I have no other explanation," she told him. After a moment, he sat back down. "Maybe..."

"What?"

"Maybe the Contingency serum had to fuse itself in a certain form in order to stick. Maybe it couldn't stick to your blood because it wasn't transferred the way it was to Tony. And when he healed you, he gave everything over, depleting himself, but it could only stay in you long enough to save you, and then it was gone."

"You mean he..." he looked over to Tony, "He sacrificed his abilities? For me?" Tim shook his head again. "He shouldn't have done that."

"I could be wrong, McGee."

"What if he doesn't get better?" he asked in a whisper. "What if he can't, because of me?" He stood again, making his way to stand beside Tony's bed. "He hasn't regained consciousness at all. And look at him. He looks...he looks so..."

"Twilight?" Abby was suddenly beside him next to the bed.

"That's not funny."

"He's gonna be okay," she assured him. "He might not be super-fast okay, but he's gonna get better. It wasn't a life-threatening injury. He just needs time to get back to normal. He lost a lot of blood. That takes a lot out of you."

"How can you be so calm?" he looked to her with furrowed brows. "You...of all of us. You're being so level-headed."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean," she replied, clearly offended.

"I didn't mean... I just... I'm sorry. I'm tired and I haven't eaten and I feel horrible and a little terrified and I'm not sure what's going on-"

"It's okay," Abby told him as he found himself suddenly wrapped in her arms. "I understand. Hey, I brought you something to eat. It's nutter butter cookies and an apple and a bottle of water. And you're gonna sit down and eat it and then take a nap. I'll be right here, keeping an eye on the both of you until you wake up, okay?" she pulled gently away and put a finger to Tim's lips before he could argue. "You either do it, or I'll tell Gibbs and he'll come drag you home."

McGee's shoulders sagged in defeat.

*~.~*

Two days later found the team with one guilt-ridden agent and another still comatose. Abby had told Gibbs about the conversation she and Tim had had in the hospital; what McGee's line of thought was on the matter. Occasionally Gibbs would look over at him from his desk to see if he was okay, and the younger man was always focused on his work, as if he'd thrown every piece of himself into it if for the sole reason to not think about anything else.

Gibbs' desk phone ringing pulled him from his concentration on the younger man. "Gibbs," he answered.

"_Is Timothy with you up there?" _Ducky's voice sounded on the other line.

"Yeah. Is there a problem?"

"_No problem, Jethro. It's just that it's time for his blood-work for the day."_

"That really necessary to continue?" Gibbs asked. The doctor and Abby had been studying Tim's blood to see if there were any changes since the incident. They were checking every day, just in case something changed.

"_I believe so, at least for a few more days,"_ he replied. _"I'd like to be prepared if something does happen."_

Gibbs let out a breath. "Alright, Duck. I'll send him down." He hung up the phone and looked to Tim who was still engrossed in his computer screen. "McGee," he called over, sternly enough that it got his attention and he met his boss's eyes. "You're due downstairs."

Tim's eyes widened slightly and he looked at his watch. "Oh god, I didn't realize what time it was," he said, pushing to stand. "I'll be back in ten, Boss," he told him as he moved to shut down whatever he was working on on the computer.

Then Gibbs' phone rang again. This time it was a case, and he held a finger up to halt Tim, until he hung up with the person on the other line. "It'll have to wait," he told the younger agent. "We've got a case, and we need you _and_ Ducky."

McGee nodded, seeming a bit relieved.

*~.~*

Tim rode in the back seat of the company vehicle as the team headed to the scene. Ziva kept sharing glances with Gibbs, both noticing how quiet the agent was, and how he busied himself on his phone looking up whatever information he could about the current case they were working.

The body of the Navy Lieutenant had been found beneath the pier overlooking Acton Cove. It was unusually hot out, especially being right by the water. There was a breeze, but it was more like someone was breathing on you, than anything. Hot and humid and slightly funky smelling, though that was likely a mixture of the water and the body that was starting to decompose.

Gibbs gave orders for Tim to photograph and Ziva to bag and tag, as he talked to the witness that discovered the body. Ducky and Palmer were heading down the pier steps down to the beach where they all were waiting.

Ziva greeted the ME as he reached the body, as Tim had wandered a bit, searching the perimeter.

"What have we here?" Ducky asked no one in particular as he knelt beside the deceased man.

"The fingerprint device identified him as Navy Lieutenant Barry Wildman," Ziva answered. "The witness who discovered his body called us after seeing his uniform. He has not yet been reported missing by anyone. McGee has asked Abby to do a background search; see if he just came in to port."

"I see," Ducky said. "Well, he doesn't look to have been dead for more than eight to ten hours, but a liver probe will be able to confirm that. Cause of death seems to be a stab wound directly between the the L1 lumbar and T12 thoracic vertebra. The killer used a technique called Scherma di stiletto siciliano, which in short means that after stabbing, he twisted the blade sharply," he demonstrated the movement with his own hand, "Before withdrawing it. It's likely the poor Lieutenant lost the ability to move, fell to this very position on his front, and bled to death from the injury."

"Over here," McGee called out from where he stood where the support beams hit the water. "Found something."

Ziva left Ducky and Palmer with the body and went to where Tim stood. He was taking a picture of what he'd found, then bent down to pick it up in his gloved hand. "A wallet," Ziva said once she got a look at it. "Is it Wildman's?"

Tim had opened it up and began to look through it. "His ID is in here. But that's all there is. No money, no credit cards. Wait..." he slipped his fingers deep into one of the empty card slots and pulled out a piece of paper. "Looks like a receipt," he said as he unfolded it. "For Whitmore's pub at 11:38pm last night. That place is just up the street from here," he looked up at her.

"Perhaps he was walking home after a few drinks and was mugged," Ziva suggested.

"His address is on the other side of town," Tim said, glancing at the familiar street name on the ID. "He probably would've caught a cab.

"Maybe he was forced down here."

"He's a pretty big guy. I feel like he'd have been able to fight back if he knew he was being attacked."

"But because he was stabbed in the back, he did not realize it was coming," she surmised.

"Doesn't have to be in the back to not know it's coming," he raised his brows. "Guess I'll take this up to Gibbs and see if he wants us to check out Whitmore's," he said as he bagged the wallet and receipt separately.

Ziva nodded in acknowledgment and headed back toward Ducky and the body, glancing over toward McGee as he approached the stairs to get up to the pier. Something about the way he started to climb the steps made her gut tell her to keep her eye on him. And when he was halfway up, his stance wavered and he was slightly hunched over, Ziva knew her gut had been right to keep watch. She quickly began her way toward him, though he continued his attempt to finish his journey as though he didn't know something was wrong.

"McGee!" she shouted as she sprinted into a run toward him. When he turned his head to look at her, his eyes suddenly rolled back in his head and his body went suddenly limp. "McGee!" she screamed, and saw that her initial shout had alerted Gibbs, and the older agent had already started toward Tim as well. He was too late to catch him before he began to fall back down the stairs. But Ziva was able to break his fall before he could head-plant the bottom step, though it knocked her down in the process.

Gibbs quickly descended the steps and skidded to his knee beside them both...

tbc...


	16. Chapter 16

"Let's get him outta this sun," Gibbs said, urgently as he got his hands up under the unconscious agent's shoulders. But as he went to lift him he realized how light the young agent was. "I got it," Gibbs said, changing his position and lifting him in his arms like a child. He headed toward the shady area beneath the pier and glanced over to Ducky who was already hurrying over.

"What on earth happened?" Ducky asked, worriedly, as he reached where Gibbs was gently lowering to his knees and laying Tim down on the sand, letting his head stay on his lap.

"He was acting...sluggish as he headed up the stairs," Ziva provided. "Then when I called to him, he turned and his eyes rolled back and he simply lost consciousness." Where she knelt beside Gibbs, it was clear that she was concerned for the agent, and she took one of his hands in hers.

"Think this has something to do with what Tony did?" Gibbs asked as Ducky took the young man's pulse and checked his pupil reaction.

"Though I cannot rule that out in the current location we're in, the symptoms I'm seeing point more toward dehydration, likely exacerbated by the intense heat out here. His heart rate is rapid, but it blood pressure is very low. When is the last time you saw him eat or drink anything?" he looked to both of them.

Ziva turned to look at Gibbs at about the same time he looked to her. "Had coffee with him this morning," Gibbs replied. "Other than that..."

"I did not see him eat anything, yesterday," Ziva added. "I was not exactly paying it much attention since we were busy. But now that I think about it..."

"My dear Timothy," Ducky shook his head, "What is going on with you?"

"Should we get him to the hospital?" Gibbs asked.

"First things first, we'll get him into my van where the air conditioning is already running," he told them. "I have plenty of bottled water with us, today. Let's get him awake and try to get him hydrated. If the hospital becomes necessary, we'll do that."

*~.~*

McGee came to once Gibbs set him down to sit in the passenger seat of Ducky's van. "W-wha..."

"It's okay, Tim," Gibbs calmed him. "You're alright."

"W-what happened?" he looked around, figuring out where he was. "Why am I in Ducky's van?"

"You lost consciousness, young man," Ducky told him as he climbed into the driver's seat and turned the AC back on full blast.

"Why?"

"It would seem you're dehydrated. Here," he handed him a water bottle.

"Don't even try and argue with him," Gibbs chided. "Get yourself hydrated. We'll talk about this later," he clapped his shoulder, gently, and closed the door to keep out the heat.

"Am I in trouble?" he looked to the doctor.

"I doubt trouble is the word I'd use," he replied. "You had us all frightened. Mr. Palmer is on his way up here with the body, and he'll have to ride back with Gibbs and Ziva, as you need to keep cool. Drink the water, Timothy. We'll do that blood test when we get back."

"You think this might have to do with-"

"I don't think so, but it's best to rule it out before making assumptions."

"I was on my way up to Gibbs to give him some evidence I found. They'll need my help with the investigation."

"Ziva picked up your evidence," he assured him. "And the sooner you start listening, the sooner you can get back to doing you job..."

*~.~*

Two hours later, found Tim at his desk with his fourth bottle of water, and his team mates just returning from interviewing possible witnesses.

"How you feelin', McGee?" Gibbs asked as he approached his desk.

"Better, Boss," he replied, straightening in his seat. "I'm sorry about that. I didn't even realize I hadn't eaten anything... But I've had lunch, and about forty ounces of water since I got back."

"Good."

"How's the investigation going?"

"We have discovered that Wildman was at Whitmore's, like you said," Ziva told him. "He left with a woman that the bartender believes might have been a prostitute. But he does not believe that Wildman knew this."

"You need me to put out a BOLO?" Tim asked.

"Already done," Gibbs replied. "Are you ready to pick her up when we get the call?"

"Yeah, of course, Boss," he nodded.

"Good," he said right as his cell rang. "Go with Ziva."

"Boss?"

Gibbs held up his phone, and they knew that Gibbs knew that the call would be about their suspect.

*~.~*

His agents had called to inform they were on their way back, right before he got another call, from the hospital. Gibbs wasted no time heading down to his car, giving Ducky a quick call to tell him where he was headed, for when his team inquired as to why he was gone.

Gibbs rushed to Bethesda as quickly as he could get by with, anxious to see his agent now that he was conscious. He'd been there first thing every morning, and spent his evenings there once work was done, and Tony hadn't looked at all better at any point that he'd been there. So this was a surprise. A good surprise.

He knew where Tony's room was, and didn't bother stopping at the nurse's station when heading past it out of the elevator. No one tried to stop him, either.

"Oh, Agent Gibbs!" Tony's doctor approached him, looking relieved. "I'm so glad you're here. Tony's been agitated since he became fully aware. I was hoping to avoid giving him any medication at this time."

"Agitated how?" he asked as he was joined in his journey toward the room.

"He seems scared. He holed himself in the corner after ripping out his IV's and oxygen. He won't let us near him, and I was about to call you so I could avoid calling down psychiatric."

They approached the door, and Gibbs narrowed his eyes at the sight of Tony curled up in the corner. It was like when he'd had his vision that first time in the hospital. His eyes seemed to be darting every which way in the air in front of him, worry and fear written in them and his face. Gibbs held a hand up, letting the doctor know he'd handle it. Then he stepped into the room, cautiously approaching his agent.

"Tony," he said, softly.

Tony's eyes tracked over to Gibbs and met his eyes. "Boss..." he blinked, swayed where he knelt, and shot his hands out to the wall to steady himself.

Gibbs knelt down in front of him. "Glad to see you awake," he started.

"Boss, I... I don't know why I'm here. Why am I here?"

"What do you remember?" Gibbs asked, calmly.

Tony looked down at his knees in thought for a moment. "Needed to save you," he said after a moment. "Witness from the cold case, she was gonna shoot you. We got there just in time, but...but McGee... Oh god..." his hands cupped either side of his head as he bowed his head enough for Gibbs not to see his watering eyes.

"McGee is fine," Gibbs told him. "You saved him." Tony looked back up at him, eyes shining but hopeful. "Don't know how you did it, or if you even knew you were doing it, but somehow you saved him. Must have some kind of healing ability we didn't know about."

"But he was dead," he shook his head. "He wasn't just hurt, Boss, he was dead. The bullet hit his carotid and he'd bled out; had no pulse. He wasn't breathing. I didn't know what to do... I just...I felt..."

"Whatever you did, Tony, he's alive and he's okay now. But you don't seem to be able to heal yourself like you did before."

"Tim's really okay?"

"Yeah, Tony. Tim's just fine. Already back to work," he raised a brow. Tony blinked on a sigh of relief, a tear escaping his aborted need to shed them. Then he grimaced, a hand shooting down to his stomach as he grunted against the sharp pain. "Hey," he moved to pull him up, "Careful now. You shouldn't be outta bed with that wound. See, you've popped the stitches," he told him, spotting the blood that was seeping through the gown.

Tony seemed a bit speechless as Gibbs helped him back to the bed and pushed him to lie back down. He thought it was the pain, but Tony was actually more confused than anything else. "I...can't heal?" he said as he touched his wound and looked at the blood on his fingers. "What does that mean?" he met Gibbs' eyes, in question.

Gibbs shook his head. "I don't have an answer to that," he told him. "Abby think maybe you depleted yourself when doing what you did to save McGee. That because the amount of blood you lost, there was nothing left to recharge in your system, and because Tim didn't have the serum, it couldn't bond to his DNA like it did yours."

"You sayin' it could be gone?" Tony asked.

Gibbs just shrugged, barely perceptible a lift of his shoulders, and wondered, himself. "Guess only time will tell..."

TBC...


	17. Chapter 17

"Hey, Ducky," McGee greeted as he and Ziva entered autopsy. "Jimmy."

"Glad to see you're feeling better, Agent McGee," Palmer smiled.

"Thanks," he returned a small, slightly embarrassed smile and turned to the doctor. "Any idea where Gibbs is? We thought he might be up with Vance, but it's been a while."

"Eh, yes, he is not upstairs," Ducky answered. "He gave me word to let you know he'd be out for an hour or so. He wanted you to carry on with the investigation until he returns."

"Okay," Tim nodded.

"Have you had sufficient time to discover anything about the Lieutenant's death?" Ziva asked.

"Time to examine, yes. However, toxicology reports wouldn't be ready at this time. That, you would have to confer with Abigail about. But as far as what we do know, now, I first took into consideration that the Lieutenant left the bar with a possible prostitute. Upon examination, however, I found no signs that he'd participated in any sexual activity within the last twenty-four hours."

"That could just mean she killed him before they got down to business," Tim said.

"Possibly so," he replied. "But it seems a bit odd that a prostitute would go so far as to kill a man in order to rob him, when she'd likely have gotten her pay without having to go to such an extreme..."

*~.~*

"No way," Amelia Gray denied in the interrogation room. "The guy told me to leave. Once I told him I was a hooker, he didn't want any part of it. I was pissed when I left, but I didn't kill him. I'll give you my DNA, anything. You can search my house, ask anyone you want. I didn't do it."

"Where did you go when you left?" Ziva asked.

"Went to another bar," she told her. "I needed to find another job."

"And did you?"

"No. I sat there like an idiot all night, too pissed about the Navy guy to actually work on anything else."

"We will need the name of the bar, please..."

*~.~*

"Her alibi checks out," McGee said after returning from the bar. "She was there all night. Bartender didn't notice anything wrong with her. Verified she was wearing the same outfit she was seen wearing in Whitmore's. There wasn't enough time for her to go change anyway."

"So we are back to the first square," Ziva sighed.

"The saying is actually square one."

"It is the same thing."

"I've got Abby tracking the missing credit cards," Tim said, letting the comment go. "Guess we'll have to wait on something to pop up, or something to show up in the tox screens."

"Or perhaps Ducky will find something else."

"I wonder where Gibbs is," Tim thought aloud as he sat at his desk. "It's been longer than Ducky said he'd be."

"Perhaps you can get his location from his phone?" she wandered to his desk as he began typing into it.

"This is a violation of privacy. He didn't specify where he was for a reason."

"Yes. But if he has gotten himself into some kind of trouble, we should know where he is so that we can assist."

"If he'd had a lead on the case, he'd have let us in on it," Tim countered. "There's nothing that shows up as it being personal. That's the only time he goes rogue."

"Maybe it _became_ personal?"

"I don't think so," he replied, pulling up the tracking screen. "According to this, he's at his house..."

*~.~*

"You don't leave here for anything, understood?" Gibbs told Tony where he lay in the guest bed. "I got you outta there, but you're not well yet. Not even close. I swear, you get outta that bed for anything but to take a piss, I'll take you back to Bethesda so fast, you won't know what hit ya."

"I got it, Boss. Cross my heart," he made the gesture across his chest. "I just wanna sleep. Hospitals make me nervous. Especially since that first vision."

"Which is why I let you talk me into letting you sign out," he replied. "I've gotta get back to the office."

"Case?"

"Yeah. Murdered Navy Lieutenant. Prostitute was involved somehow. They should have her in for questioning by now, and Duck is probably finished with the autopsy."

"What would be the motive behind a prostitute killing a job?"

"Might not have been willing to pay her price."

"Yeah but...you honestly think a hooker could take on a man in uniform?"

"Stabbed him in the back."

"Prostitution could've been a cover," he retorted. "She could've been paid to kill him."

"Was anything missing?"

"Wallet had been emptied. Everything but the ID."

"So it was a robbery..."

"Which is why we think it was her."

"But why would she kill a guy who she could've just slept with and gotten her money in a much less risky way?"

"That's what I intend to find out, DiNozzo," he cocked his head before he left the room.

"Gibbs, wait!" he called and Gibbs turned back around. "Where's my phone?"

"Back at NCIS," Gibbs narrowed his eyes, then pulled his own phone from his pocket and handed it to him. "Just use this. Gimme twenty minutes and if you need me, call your phone."

"Got it, Boss. Thanks."

*~.~*

"Why would he be home in the middle of a case?" Ziva asked, confused.

"Maybe...he didn't feel well?"

"When has Gibbs ever been ill?"

"I...actually ya know, I don't think he ever has been..."

"Exactly," she pointed a finger at him. "So why is he not here?"

"I'm here, Agent David," Gibbs' voice surprised them both when he suddenly entered the bullpen.

"Gibbs!"

"Boss, we thought you were at your house..."

"Why'd ya think that, McGee?" he asked as he went to his desk.

"Because...well...we were kinda worried so we...might've traced your phone."

"Well my phone is at the house," Gibbs told him, "With Tony."

Both agents shot their gaze to him. "Tony's awake?" Tim stood.

"And out of the hospital?" Ziva added.

"Yeah. He's gonna be okay," Gibbs told them. "And you can go see him...once we've closed this case."

"Right, Boss," Tim was disappointed that he had to wait, but it made him all the more determined to get to work.

"What do we got?" Gibbs came back around to the front of his desk to face his agents.

"Amelia Grey, the prostitute, has an alibi," Tim conveyed. "She says once Wildman found out she was a hooker, he told her to get lost. She was angry, but she didn't do anything but go to another bar."

"Which we checked out," Ziva chimed in. "She was wearing the same outfit she'd worn to Whitmore's. It is likely that she did not kill the Lieutenant."

"What about the credit cards?" Gibbs asked.

"Abby's tracking-" Tim's phone rang and cut him off. "That's her," he told them before answering. "Yeah Abby?" he listened to the voice on the other line. "Hang on, I'll put you on screen," he typed into his keyboard after hanging up his desk phone, and within a moment her lab appeared on the big screen.

"Hey, guys! I got a hit on one of Lieutenant Wildman's credit cards. A security deposit came out just now for the Maridion Inn on 24th street. Not three blocks from where the body was found."

"Tox screen?" Gibbs asked.

"Clean. Nothing unusual showed up, Gibbs. Unless you wanna count his blood alcohol level, which wouldn't be surprising since he was in a bar...and since he left said bar with a woman he didn't realize was a hooker... And it would probably explain why he was so easily off-guard, long enough to get stabbed to death..."

"Text me that address, Abs," Gibbs said as he made his way to the elevator.

"On it, Bossman!" she waved before Tim shut down the video call and headed after Gibbs and Ziva.

*~.~*

Gibbs slid the keycard into the door lock for the room charged on Wildman's card, quietly. Then motioned to his agents before he forcefully pushed open the door and they rushed in.

"NCIS!" he shouted, their weapons drawn and aimed.

The room was a suite on the top floor. It'd been booked for an entire week ahead, the deposit only coming in that morning. The man in the lobby said the man had booked online and checked in fairly late the night before, ordering copious amounts of items from the room service menu.

That much was evident as they walked in, seeing tray after tray of empty plates. There was no one, so far, except when they entered the bedroom. There lay their suspect, sprawled out on the bed, quiet pale and obvious dead. Beside him, an empty whiskey bottle and one of the hotel plates lined with cocaine and a straw.

"Rest of the place is clear," McGee told him as he entered the bedroom.

"Damnit," Gibbs breathed, holstering his weapon...

*~.~*

"Alexander Smith," McGee pulled up the profile on the big screen back in the bullpen. "Age forty-nine. Former insurance salesman back in 2010, lost his family in a house fire. Lost his job. Had no other family. Ended up on the street. Guess he's been there ever since."

"He must have recently developed a drug habit," Ziva chimed in. "When he saw Wildman alone, probably beneath the very pier he called his 'home', he saw an opportunity."

"A Navy Lieutenant is dead because someone needed a fix," McGee said almost under his breath, disgusted.

"We'll have to confirm it, but it looks like that's the case," Gibbs replied, as disgusted.

"I'll go see what Ducky's found-"

"No," Gibbs cut McGee off, and the younger agent furrowed his brows, a bit confused. "Go see Tony," he told him. "I think he wants to see you as much as you him."

Tim swallowed. "Thanks, Boss," he said after a moment, then grabbed his things and hurried to the elevator.

Gibbs watched him as he hurried off, then his gaze met Ziva, who was smiling warmly at him. The corner of his mouth turned up for a moment. "Come on. Let's go see Ducky."

*~.~*

Tony woke at the sound of the front door opening. He didn't recall having fallen asleep in the first place. He moved to sit up, reaching over to the side table for Gibbs' phone to check the time. Moving seemed to take a lot out of him. The level of weakness was intense enough to remind him of his recovery from Y Pestis. Though he had to admit, this was a lot less uncomfortable. He could breathe, and his body only hurt where it'd been shot, not every muscle in his body, like when he was sick.

It'd only been half an hour since Gibbs left, according to the clock. He sighed as he felt his bladder letting him know it was time to take the journey to the bathroom. Pushing up and swinging his legs off the edge of the bed, he had to take a moment to catch his breath. It was frustrating that it felt like when he'd finished a two-mile run.

"Need some help?" Tim's voice sounded from the doorway, and Tony turned his head to see him.

"McGee..." Tony was eager to stand, now, and pushed himself to do so.

Tim hurried over as his partner dangerously listed to the side, and he caught him to steady him. "Hey, take it easy," he told him. Then he found himself pulled into an embrace. At first, he thought maybe Tony was steadying himself. But as he felt the older man's arms shift to hold tighter, and felt a slight tremble in them, he realized that it was an intentional hug. Tim instinctively hugged him back. "You okay, Tony?" he asked, softly.

"Yeah I...I'm okay. I'm just...I'm just glad you're okay, Tim," he told him. And then Tony felt Tim's hands clench around his back; felt when the younger man's breath hitched. He gently pulled away, trying to look at his face.

"I'm sorry, Tony," his voice cracked.

"For what?" Tony's brows furrowed.

"You gave up your abilities to save me... Look at you. You can't heal yourself. That wasn't fair to you and I'm sorry," he said with tears in his eyes.

"If I thought I could head-slap you without falling over, I would," Tony told him. Tim got a confused look on his face. "You think I'm upset about this, you're wrong," he said. "Listen," he carefully moved a hand up to McGee's shoulder, "I didn't know I could save you. I had no idea. I thought you were dead, Tim, and that was on me, because of my vision."

"It wasn't your-"

"But that doesn't even matter," he interrupted. "It doesn't matter why. Just that you were gone. I'd been so afraid of outliving all of you. But I hadn't figured I'd end up having to lose you guys so soon. I...couldn't handle it." McGee could see the seriousness in Tony's face, and it made his heart clench. "The feeling? I mean...when I had visions of it, it was different. When I knew it was real, everything inside me was...I dunno...boiling. I was angry and... Man, whatever I was feeling must've triggered something. And I'm glad it did. I really really am," his voice cracked. "And you think I traded something valuable for it, but I wanted this...these abilities, I wanted them gone. I wanted to be rid of this curse, and you gave that to me, Tim, and I can't explain to you how grateful I am for that, and that the one thing I could do on their way out was to save you."

Tim's eyes scanned the older agent's face, trying to wrap his head around what he'd been told.

In a flash of pictures, Tony remembered the moments leading up to Tim's death. He remembered the gushing wound and how it felt when he tried to stop the bleeding. He remembered the ache in his chest being far more powerful than the pain in his gut from the bullet wound.

His hand came up to where the fatal wound had been on Tim's neck, seeing just the scratch there. Then he swallowed down all of the emotion that washed over him, and pulled his hands away with a smile. "Ya know, if you were a chick, and I was into you, this would be kinda like Superman 2, where he gives up his powers so he could be with Lois Lane."

Tim narrowed his eyes, "Except that he did that so he could sleep with her, not to save her life. In fact, that didn't turn out so well."

"This is true. But hey, now I could totally be Batman. I've got a genius scientist-creator-person making all these awesome gadgets in a secret lair... And in a way, we totally have Mr. Freeze on lockdown."

Tim half-smiled, shaking his head. "Except Batman could get himself to the bathroom."

"I can get myself to the bathroom!" Tony retorted with a scoff.

"You've been doing a pee-pee dance since I got here."

"Have not..."

"It's been less noticeable for a couple of minutes. But it's been there."

"Alright so I have to pee! I was getting ready to do that, when you showed up. I can get there just fine."

"You're gonna piss yourself at the rate you'll have to get there."

"How do you know what rate I'd be going?" he asked, incredulously.

"Because you look like you still don't have enough blood to reach your face," he replied, then turned to the side and grabbed Tony's arm to put it over his shoulder, and started to lead his partner to the bathroom.

"If I didn't have to pee so bad, I'd kick your ass right now..."

Tbc...


	18. Chapter 18

**AN: This took AGES, and I apologize for that fact. BUT this is the final chapter for this installment of Contingency! I hope it meets your expectations, and possibly exceeds some as well :)**

**Also, please check out my book, Version 2.0 (by C.M. Adams) which you can find on amazon for kindle or paperback. The second book in the series will be finished by the end of this summer, and I wrote both while writing the Contingency series, so you'll see where some of it has a bit of similar mindset, while being completely different at the same time. Please please do check it out...support this starving artist! You never know where I'll end up in the future, and I won't forget the people who supported me while I was still at the beginning~**

*~.~*

Tony strolled into the bullpen with his backpack slung over his shoulder. It'd been three months since he got out of the hospital. He'd been back to work for a while, but today was especially special.

"Good morning, probies!" he smiled as he took a seat.

"What're you so happy about?" McGee asked, looking over suspiciously.

"Oh nothing," he shook his head. "Actually, I'm kinda pissed. But at the same time, I'm pretty relieved."

"What does that mean?" Ziva asked, standing and walking to his desk.

"I found a gray hair this morning," he grinned.

She narrowed her eyes. "Why does this relieve you?"

"It means he's aging," Tim understood suddenly, and stood to join them at the desk as well. "It means...he really is back to normal."

"I haven't been able to do anything lately, I mean with the uh...ya know...abilities," he said quietly. "So I kinda had a feeling that was the case. But this is kinda the proof, right?"

"How do you know you did not have it before?" Ziva asked.

"Because he obsessively checks every morning," McGee supplied.

"I do not," Tony retorted. "It's before I go to bed, thank you very much."

"What a coincidence, DiNozzo," Gibbs said as he rounded the corner into the bullpen.

"What's that, Boss?"

"We've got a case to solve before you go to bed, too," he told them as he gathered his gun and badge from his desk.

*~.~*

Things had escalated quickly out in the field. A witness they'd gone to question had suddenly become a suspect. McGee was ordered to search the outside perimeter, Tony and Ziva the inside of the house, as Gibbs continued to question the suspect in the living room. It was when Ziva looked to Tony for a moment, after hearing something change about the way he was breathing, that she realized something was wrong.

"Tony? Are you alright?" she turned to him and saw his hand was on his stomach. "Your injury?"

"No," Tony shook his head. "Not the same thing. Just...I dunno. Feel sick to my stomach suddenly."

"Did you eat something different this morning?" she turned her attention back to their search.

"No. Didn't eat anything, actually," he replied, then groaned. "This sucks."

"Perhaps you should sit down," she told him. "We are finished, anyway."

"Okay."

They headed downstairs, something nagging at the back of Tony's mind the whole time.

"Anything?" Gibbs approached them speaking quietly, glancing to their cuffed suspect on the couch.

Ziva shook her head. "Nothing."

"Take the suspect to the car," he told her, then turned to Tony, noticing then that he looked a bit off. "You okay, DiNozzo?"

"Yeah, Boss. Just feeling a little sick to my stomach. I'll be okay."

"Good," Gibbs nodded, skeptically. "Go get McGee. See if he's found anything, and let's get the hell outta here."

Suddenly that nagging feeling in Tony's mind became a ringing in his ears, and he hurried outside to look for his partner. "McGee?" he called out, quickly rounding the corner of the house into the back yard. There was no sign of him. "Tim, where are you, man?" he shouted as he began running the entire perimeter. It was then that he found a discarded NCIS ball cap lying in the grass, the ground disturbed as if there'd been a struggle. "Oh no...oh god no..." Tony panicked when he saw droplets of blood in the dirt. "Gibbs!" he shouted just as the older agent was walking out of the house.

The lead agent heard the worry in his SFA's voice and hurried around to the side of the house where he heard his voice originating from. He put it together himself as he approached. The look of pure panic on Tony's face, the hat on the ground.

"Boss, he's gone. Someone took him," his voice shook. They both looked around, frantically searching for some indication of where whoever took him might have headed. Their search led them to the street, both looking up opposite directions as Gibbs pulled out his phone to make a call in about the sudden development.

"Where is McGee?" Ziva looked to them from where she stood outside of the car, after having just put the suspect in the back seat.

"That's what we're trying to find out," Gibbs frustratedly replied, then shouted into his phone as the other line picked up. She listened, eyes widening as he told dispatch that they had a kidnapped agent. Then she, too, was frantically scanning the area.

"_Oh god...don't lemme die..."_

Tony shook his head at the weird sensation tickled his ears. He could've sworn he just heard...

"_Shit shit shit...Gibbs is gonna kill me..."_

"Tim?" Tony looked all around where he stood, in search of where Tim's voice was coming from.

"_Tony?"_

"Where are you? I can't..."

"_Tony, are you...are you talking to me in my head? Oh god...I...she must've hit me harder than I thought..."_

"Tim, where are you?" his eyes stung, the nauseous feeling becoming overwhelming.

"_I...think I'm in the trunk. We're moving."_

"Did you see who took you?"

"_It was the neighbor. The lady next door. Redhead. Is this real? Are you really...you?"_

"Tony, who are you talkin' to?" Gibbs looked at him with narrowed eyes, his phone at his side now.

Tony worriedly met his boss's eyes. "I...think McGee and I are... I dunno, Boss. Somehow he's talking to me. It's the neighbor. Redhead next door. He's in the trunk of her car and they're moving, but he doesn't know where."

"Find out what kinda car she drives and let's put a BOLO out," he shouted, then put the phone back to his ear.

"It was a navy blue 2012 Kia Soul," Ziva provided from memory. "License plate read '1FINEDAY'."

Gibbs relayed the information on the phone as he headed to the driver door. "Get in!" he ordered. Ziva got in the back with the suspect while Tony climbed into the front passenger seat. Gibbs had them moving before his door was shut all the way.

"He still talkin'?" Gibbs asked Tony without looking away from the road.

"I don't..." Tony shook his head, a bit confused with the feelings that seemed to bounce around in his head. "He's scared. He doesn't think it's real. This thing..." he glances nervously to his boss. "Honestly, I'm not sure I do either."

"Well so far it's all we've got to go on, so I hope to hell you're right," Gibbs stated gruffly.

"Um..." the suspect in beside Ziva looked at the two men in the front. "Are we on a high-speed chase? And what are you talking about."

"If you do not wish to be blindfolded and gagged, I suggest you shut up," Ziva flatly replied.

"St- stopped...he's stopped," Tony breathed quickly. "There's a really bright light, like the trunk's being opened."

"Where, Tony?" Gibbs impatiently asked.

"Where...where, Tim...where?" he was squeezing his eyes shut, trying to see beyond changes of feeling, movement and light. "What do you see?"

"This is your accomplice!" Ziva suddenly realized as she looked wide-eyed at the suspect beside her.

"Huh?"

"Why else would one of our agents just happen to be taken right outside of your home?" she spat, then grabbed the back of his hair and yanked his head back harshly. "Tell me where she is taking him, now! And maybe I will not kill you where you sit!"

"Wait! Just- ow! Just...listen! I worked for her! Not the other way around, okay? I didn't do anything!"

"Where is she taking my agent?" Gibbs yelled, glancing in his rear view.

"What's the matter? Your resident psychic not cutting it for ya- ow!" Ziva yanked his hair again. "Hey I dunno, alright!"

"Is there a place she's had you meet her before?" Gibbs asked, patience gone.

"There's just this one... It's one of those parkin' garages that nobody really uses much over the third level. Kimart's. We meet at the top. It's not far from here."

"Why would she take McGee there?" Ziva asked, looking to Gibbs in question.

"Maybe thought she'd buy herself some time," he screeched to take a left toward the garage.

"Or perhaps she intends to drop him off the top," Ziva grimly suggested, her worried eyes meeting Gibbs' in the mirror.

"Guh...c-can't..." Tony struggled as his breaths came more quickly, and the other agents looked to him. "Can't breathe, it's so hot..."

That's when Gibbs' phone rang in his pocket.

"That's probably her," the suspect said.

Gibbs fished out the phone and held it to his ear.

"_Agent Gibbs. By now you've noticed your agent is missing," _the woman sounded smug on the other line.

"What do you want?" Gibbs asked.

"_I want to make a trade," _she told him. _"You have my partner. I have yours. The difference, Special Agent Gibbs, is that I have no qualms about ending your partner's life. You, on the other hand, couldn't."_

"No reason to," Gibbs replied. "No use to us dead."

"_And you agent is no use to me either way. Right now he is running out of time. There is only so much heat a person can take before their brain starts to melt."_

"Where are you?" Gibbs asked, angrily.

"_I will be behind the shut down filling station on Tenth and Renaldo Avenue. You bring my partner to me, and I will tell you the location of your agent."_

"How do we know he's not already dead?" he shouted back, glancing to Tony to let him know that this was just a tactic.

"_Keep asking questions, and he will be, because you were too late to save him."_

"Fine. Fine!"

"_You have fifteen minutes, Agent Gibbs. Do not be late."_

Gibbs ended the call and nearly threw the phone.

"Boss, drop me off," Tony insisted. "Drop me off at the garage and then go get that bitch. I can get to him."

"What if that's not the right place?" Gibbs narrowed his eyes.

"It is," he replied. "I'll call you if it isn't. But I know it is, Boss. Please! He's running out of time!"

The garage was in sight. Tenth and Renaldo was ten minutes away. "I'll call for an EMT to get you both," he said as he screeched to a halt in front of the garage. "You tell me the moment you have him!" he shouted as Tony was out the door in a flash.

"Yes, Boss!" he ran toward the door to the stairs...

*~.~*

McGee was helpless, tied up in the back seat of the Jetta, duct tape over his mouth. The sun was beating down so hot, and this car had been up here before they'd arrived, anyway.

When the woman first shoved him into the car, his feet hadn't been tied. She couldn't lift him, in reality. She had to wait until his was in the car before hogtying his limbs together. With a gun pointed at his head, there wasn't much he could do to fight back while she was there. He relied on his sense of Tony in his head to distract him. Once she left, though, he'd struggled to break free of his bindings and try and get out of the sweltering heat of the car.

She'd done this on purpose. He'd die if he was in there for very long. And though he knew that, he could do nothing to save himself. It was getting harder to breathe, like he was under water. Hot, boiling water...

"_Hey, probie, now don't you dare give up on me!" _he heard Tony's voice and cracked open his eyes. But no one was there. _"I'm almost there! I'm here, Tim, I promise. I just...ya never realize how hard seven flights of stairs at high-speed is on an empty stomach, until it's too late."_

"I'm dying," he said out loud. "I've lost my mind and think I can hear Tony in my head..."

"_Yeah, well...I guess we've both lost our minds then," _Tony replied. _"And you're not gonna die, because I'm gonna save you. I'll be damned if I climbed seven damn flights for nothing! Where the hell are you, McGee? Oh wait...I see it..."_

"Only car up here," Tim replied. "'s'at really you?"

"_I know it's the only one up here, McObvious! But it was kinda not noticeable until I got past the smoke stack. And yeah it's really me, damnit, I'll prove it to you."_

A banging sounded on the window closest to his feet, and he sluggishly looked down at it. There stood a worried looking Tony, pulling frantically on the door handle to find it locked. Tim closed his eyes, relieved that he had rescue, or content to die if it was just a hallucination from the heat.

"Close your eyes, Tim!" Tony shouted and Tim heard it in his head and with his ears, muffled from the barrier between them. His eyes already closed, he simply laid there and waited. Then he heard a gun fire and the sound of breaking glass, and that was it. Everything went blank. Everything went dark.

Tony reached in hurriedly to unlock the doors, then pulled his arm back out so he could open the back door and get to his partner. "McGee, I gotcha!" he called, grabbing hold of Tim's ankle. When there was no response, Tony realized his eyes hadn't opened again. "No," Tony shook his head, gut dropping as he searched for that connection they'd had just moments earlier and found nothing.

He desperately pulled the younger man from the car, cradling him in his arms like a child, and ran toward the ramp where he could put him in the shade.

Tim weighed about as much as a woman, Tony noted, saving for later jokes when his partner was okay. He had to be okay. There was no two ways about it.

Once he reached the shade, he nearly collapsed to the concrete, barely holding onto McGee as he did. The ground was cool, even if the air was still a bit musty, so he laid him down on it and shakily reached his fingers to his pulse point, breathing a sigh of relief when he felt it beating strongly. Tim's skin looked red, like he'd spent the day at the beach without sunscreen. The fact that he'd only been in the hot car for half an hour made him feel all the more strongly about how stupid people were to leave their animals in their car when they ran into the store. Even with a cracked window, which Tim hadn't even had the luxury of. And the higher elevation and fact that the car had been sitting in that direct sunlight all day, combined with how little mass the younger agent had on his body, made for fast cooking.

He pulled out his cell and dialed Gibbs...

*~.~*

"You sonofabitch!" the kidnapper shouted out at her partner in crime as they stood outside their cars behind the filling station, guns drawn. Gibbs had ordered her to drop her weapon, and once she realized they'd found Tim already, she had no choice but to give herself up. "I did that for you!"

"I'm sorry," he told her. "I didn't have a choice!"

When Ziva had her in cuffs, Gibbs holstered his weapon and called Tony back, worried about their teammate and wondering if the ambulance had arrived to get them yet. "How's McGee?" he asked when Tony picked up.

"_He looks like hell," _Tony told him. _"I hear the bus coming up. Wish I'd brought water, though he hasn't woken up since I pulled him from the car. I'm worried, Boss."_

"We're bringing these two in, and I'll meet you at Bethesda, Tony. Just hang in there."

*~.~*

By the time Gibbs got to the hospital, McGee was up and feeling better, being treated for heat exhaustion. As Gibbs approached the room he was being treated in, he heard him and Tony talking.

"So we've got some kind of...connection now," Tony said, quietly. "That was real," he said it as if he was trying to convince himself in addition to Tim.

"It had to be," he replied. "Everything you said you heard, I said. And vice versa. What does this mean? I mean...does it mean you're still...um..."

"I dunno about all that," Tony said. "There's no sign of any of my other...things. Maybe this is just...residual. And it's just you and me. Maybe because of what I did to bring you back. Something kinda...clicked together in us or something. That sounds a little gay..." he looked off to the side for a moment.

"You're an idiot."

"An idiot who totally saved your ass!" Tony retorted. "Need I remind you that you let yourself get kidnapped by a girl?"

"She came up behind me and put a gun to my head, Tony. Her gender had nothing to do with it."

"And redheads can get the upper hand before you know there's anything coming," Gibbs said as he chose that moment to enter the room.

"Boss," McGee greeted. "I'm sorry..."

"Wasn't your fault," he approached the bed. "How're you feeling?"

"A lot better, thanks. You got her?"

"They'll be put away for a long time," Gibbs assured him. "Duck says you'll be good to come back to work tomorrow. Desk duty."

"Boss, I'm fine," he insisted.

"Hot weather will effect you for a few days, still. You need to take care of yourself of you'll be worse off," he ordered.

"Don't worry, Boss," Tony said. "I'm gonna stay with him and make sure he follows doctor's orders." Gibbs looked between the two agents. "Besides, we've got a lot we should discuss, now."

Gibbs cocked his head in thought for a moment. Then he nodded. They would have plenty to discuss. The ability to communicate with each other in a way no one else could, could be as troublesome as it was helpful. He wondered what this meant for Tony. Or Tim, for that matter. He wondered what their future would now entail...

But that...is another story...

~Fin~


End file.
